Fairy Tail: New family and a new adventure
by Ken Vermillion
Summary: What if Natsu had a different family when he was with Igneel. This is a story of Natsu and his new family and the adventures that they go on before and after they join Fairy Tail. OOC Natsu. Nali story. Rated M just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hey guys, this is my first ever fanfiction after reading a ton of them. I really thought that I should write one of these myself and started with the story. This is story reimagined starting from when Natsu was with Igneel.**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy Tail. The OC are mine though.**

 **Fairy Tail: New family and a new world**

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Chapter One: An unexpected meeting

Year x776...

It was a normal day, a day like any other with a bright morning, with birds chirping their tune and a cold breeze blowing through the grass. In a cave at the edge of the forest, a creature living there was rising to the morning. The creature was massive and looked like a gigantic lizard with wings and wait… gigantic lizard with wings… oh… it's a dragon. It got up and moved outside of the cave into the forest leaving behind a kid who didn't look older than 6. The kid reacted to the sudden loss of the warmth of the dragon and opened one of his eyes just enough to see the light outside the cave. He then lazily jerked to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes he then got up and stretched, finally out of his dazed state. He then walked outside the cave and saw the dragon standing facing away from him. "Good morning, Igneel" called out the boy, alerting the dragon who replied "Good morning, Natsu". Natsu then walked forward and stood there looking in the same direction as the dragon trying to find anything in sight, but in vain. He then felt the cool breeze flowing through the air and thought 'this feels so good'. It felt good despite not having any proper clothes, just a pair of pants that went down to his knees. The dragon then looked at the boy and said "How about we get some breakfast and get started with today's training?". "Okay, let's go!" was the reply. The boy then went into the forest with dragon to get food.

Natsu had caught a rabbit and Igneel had found his meal ( **A/N:God knows what that could be!** ). They both had their meal and were set for the plans for the rest of the day. They then got out the forest and come back to the clear area near the cave. "Let's start training Igneel, teach me a new powerful spell today!" exclaimed Natsu with fire in his eyes. "Okay if you think you can learn this then I'll teach you something even better tomorrow!" said the dragon, smirking in his mind. "Awesome!" said Natsu "let's do this, Now I'm all fired up!" and he got ready for learning the spell. Igneel then signaled Natsu to get over his back, which Natsu complied, and took off to a place with large rocks and boulders. Igneel let Natsu down and told him "Today you are going to learn the **Fire dragon's: Sword Horn** ". "Okay, so what does spell do? Does it go boom?" Natsu asked. The dragon only gave a grin and explained the spell to the kid, to which the kid showed a lot of enthusiasm hearing the word 'boom' at the end of the explanation.

A good six hours later, the kid lay there on the ground near the dragon panting and rubbing his head. "Ouch! That hurts a lot Igneel! What kind of spell is this?" asked Natsu crying anime tears. "I told you, leaning dragon slayer magic and the spells I know are going to need a lot of training! I never mentioned it being a walk in the park" replied the dragon. "This is the not fair, you overgrown lizard… this spell is not even strong and it hurts a lot!" Natsu cried, getting up. "Don't compare me, the mighty Igneel to a puny lizard, you foolish brat" roared Igneel pounding the kid into the ground with his large claw. "Practice makes perfect… you have to practice to make the spell you learnt strong" replied the dragon sternly. "Stupid dragon!" replied Natsu with a tick mark on his head. "Let's take a break!" said the dragon now he too getting a little tired of the constant lecturing to the kid. "Let's go to the village where you got your books… you go and meet up with the people you know and greet them" suggested Igneel to which Natsu calmed down and agreed. Then, Natsu got onto the dragon's back as he was signaled and they departed to the village.

Natsu, resting on Igneel's back, thought of all the people in the village he knew, the old man selling the fruits and vegetables, the sweet nuns in the church and the stern librarian from whom Natsu got his books. 'Honestly he is a jerk… but he does lend the books for free, so I guess he's not so bad' thought Natsu. 'All the other town people are also very nice' he remembered when they helped him get to the library when he got there the first. As Igneel started to descend Natsu snapped out of his thoughts and got ready to go the village. Igneel dropped Natsu off a few miles away from the village so as not scare the villagers to death. Natsu then waved to Igneel and ran away to in the direction of the village.

Running towards the village he could see the sky getting darker by the minute. It took quite some time for the kid to get to the village. But strangely as Natsu got closer to the village it started to get brighter. As he got closer he could smell ash, burnt wood, flesh and bones. He had a bad feeling about that and when he reached the village, his eyes were wide in shock at the scene before him. The whole village now burning in a bright red and orange flame, 'This is really bad!' thought Natsu worriedly. "I've got to find what caused this!" muttered Natsu and ran off looking in every direction. He then spotted 3 people in black cloaks, presumably men due to their size and height, standing near one of the burning houses. The house was pretty small and looked as if it was about to collapse from burning. The men standing there looked as if they were trying to find something inside the burning house. Natsu then carefully hid behind a wall which was opposite to the house and observed the men. He was keenly looking for an opportunity to find out the thing that the three were so keen on finding. Suddenly a part of the roof collapse onto the house, scaring the three men. "Let's get out of here!" shouted one of them, "The woman in there must have already died because of that roof collapse". "Yeah… we have already done our work, let's just go!" agreed another one and the three were about to leave when they heard another house collapse. *CRASH* *BOOM* *CLANK* Natsu froze behind the wall thinking that he was found out. 'What do I do!... They know I am here!' panicked Natsu. "Let's just go… all the houses are collapsing anyways" spoke the third and they moved away from the place and disappeared in a black torrent of magic. "That was close" Natsu sighed of relief, "Better go find out who is in there" and with that the boy sped to the house.

Being a fire dragon slayer, unaffected by the heat of the flames, he pushed the burning door away and got into the house. Being small the house had only two rooms. The first room was where the roof had collapsed. So Natsu quickly walked past it and discovered something in the second room. A woman not too old looking, lay there unconscious underneath a burnt wooden beam. Natsu without giving a second thought rushed to her and heard that she still breathing, but just barely. 'This may be difficult!' thought Natsu looking at the beam which looked almost twice as big as Natsu himself. As Natsu started lifting the thing he noticed that the beam was quite light and when he tried lifting it further it just crumbled into dust and smaller pieces of burnt wood. 'Damn, that's nasty!' Natsu complained internally sneezing off the ash that had formed. He then lifted the woman and rushed outside the house. He then got to wall that was nearby and rested her against it. Dusting off the ash, wood and other stuff off the woman, he then remembered the three people in the cloaks. 'I have to rescue others, if there are any…' Natsu then rushed backed. After a few minutes he came and was surprised to see the woman still unconscious. "Okay, guess Igneel will know what to do" sighed Natsu and picked up the woman and got moving in the direction in which he came from, opposite to the village.

Natsu got to Igneel, placed the woman on the ground and explained what happened in the village. "Igneel, what do you think we should do?" asked Natsu looking at the dragon, who was now examining the woman on the ground. "I don't think I'll be much of a help if she wakes up now!" replied the dragon. Looking at the woman Natsu now discovered who the woman was. "Wait a minute… I know her Igneel, she is a nurse at one of the hospitals in the village" said Natsu "I really wanna help her and also know what happened at the village!" exclaimed Natsu "She is a really good person, though I didn't talk to her much, I saw she was very friendly with all the villagers". "Okay, I know what to do" sighed the dragon in defeat "but if she wakes up and freaks out it's your responsibility, Natsu". "Okay! That's no problem at all" was the joyous reply of the boy. With that settled and out of the way Natsu got himself and the woman on the back of Igneel and they flew off in the direction of the cave.

Natsu sat there on the dragon's back near woman remembering about the village. 'Man the village was such a nice place… those cloaked people looked like they wanted all the people dead, why?'. 'and what did they mean by work?' pondered Natsu, then he remembered that the woman never woke up. He worriedly turned to look at the woman only to discover that she was sleeping, snoring ever so slightly. 'What the hell was I worried for?' sweat dropped Natsu. He then looked forward again staring into the sky loosing himself in thought of the village. He then closed his eyes and felt the wind blowing past him as he was sitting. "Okay, might as well ask her about everything tomorrow" sighed Natsu. With that Natsu just sat there enjoying the wind. A few hours later they had reached the entrance of the cave.

Next day morning Natsu and Igneel did their usual morning chores, had breakfast and gathered near the woman, who was still sleeping and snoring ever so lightly. Natsu looked at the face and saw how peaceful it was, whereas Igneel was trying to determine anything about the sleeping woman. She was beauty with pink hair, the color the same as Natsu's hair. She wore a cream colored one-piece dress, with white flower patterns on it which were barely visible, that was burnt and torn at edges with burn marks here and there. The woman had a bright complexion and a pretty face, adorned by her pink hair which was long. She had a slim yet voluptuous figure, a woman who was the ideal for any man. As Igneel was trying to examine the woman, the hot breath which he exhaled hit the woman causing her to stir in her sleep. Now she was slowly waking up because of the heat the air. Noticing this, both Natsu and Igneel curiously, quietly and slowly moved away. As the woman got into a sitting position with her vision blurry, not remembering or knowing anything that had transpired yesterday, she stretched and still had her eyes half-closed. Another hit with a hot breath of air snapped her out of her dazed state, startling her causing her to shoot open her eyes. As her vision cleared, she found out that she was under a tree and was being watched by a gigantic thing with two large golden eyes. "KYAAAAAHHH!" screamed the woman realizing the creature to be a dragon that was looking at her.

The woman then jumped at the sight of the dragon and was ready to flee, when she noticed a tuft of pink at the corner of her eye. Quickly glancing over, she noticed a boy, who was half-naked with pink hair, looking at the dragon with a confused look which she failed to notice. Assuming the boy was also taken and brought with her, which seemed obvious looking at the boy's clothes, she quickly got up and ran to Natsu. Running, as she closed in on Natsu, dived and tackled Natsu and sat up in a defensive position with half her back facing the dragon while holding Natsu. 'Interesting' smirked Igneel internally. "Don't worry I'll protect you. I won't let that dragon harm you!" the woman told Natsu in a comforting tone. She then looked at the dragon and found that it was trying to inch closer to the two of them. "Don't come any closer!" she shouted at the dragon, tightening her hold on Natsu. Natsu chuckled internally and finally spoke "It's okay lady, he won't hurt me or you" surprising the woman. "What are you telling young one? That's a dragon!" she replied back. "Don't worry he's my father" said Natsu with a big grin. "I was the one who brought you here yesterday" said Natsu remembering what had happened. 'Yesterday?' thought the woman and then it hit her. All of the memories of the events that had occurred the day before had come back to her and she remembered the most horrible one of them. She burst into tears while burying her face in her hands. Seeing her cry Natsu immediately hugged the woman trying to comfort her. The woman reacted by hugging Natsu back and started crying on his shoulder. "Don't cry. I'm here for you. Your face doesn't look nice when you cry. Please tell me what happened" comforted Natsu. Hearing the pure-hearted words of concern, the woman slowly calmed down letting go of Natsu. "Thank you" said the woman, finally calm. All the while Igneel was watching the scene unfolding in front of him and thought 'This just keeps getting better and better'. "You're welcome, by the way I'm Natsu Dragneel. What is your name?" asked Natsu with a big grin. Seeing the bright face of Natsu, she replied with a smile "My name is Erica Linette".

She then finally recognized Natsu, remembering that he was the kid who had come to find books very often in the village but never once visited the hospital for a checkup. She shrugged it off and enquired Natsu about the dragon. Before Natsu could say anything "I am Igneel, the mighty Fire Dragon KING!" roared Igneel. Natsu could only sweat drop at Igneel's proclamation. "O-o-oh, I-I-I s-see" stuttered Erica scared of the dragon's loud roar. "Stop scaring her, you stupid gecko" shouted Natsu who then received a nice thrashing into the ground. "Don't you dare compare me with a lizard" Igneel roared back at Natsu. Erica could only laugh at the supposed father and son's antics.

After a hearty laugh she calmed down and saw Natsu approaching her. "So, can you tell us what happened at the village?" asked Natsu carefully trying not to make Erica cry again. her face became dull but she decided on telling the complete day's events. She began "It started in the evening when group of cloaked men began to search for children in the village. At first they just entered the village and started discussing about their stuff in a small group. It also looked as though they just came to get supplies for their journey. But then they went to a place where there were more children. It seemed awkward at first but then the people just ignored them as it was none of their business. As soon as they got near a park where there were many children the group split up and started capturing the children". "Those people looked bad and even smelled fishy too!" said Natsu. Agreeing she continued "When the older people tried to stop them they just blasted them away using magic. When they were enquired for their reason for kidnapping during the struggle they revealed that the children were to be used as slaves to build a tower for the almighty Black Wizard, Zeref".

At the last word, 'Zeref' cursed Igneel angrily.

"My husband was one of the people who knew magic and tried to retaliate and was the first one to be made an example of" tears rolled down her cheeks, "Seeing my husband die everyone tried to retaliate even harder, but in vain". "The cloaked men then started to kill all the adults and captured every child in sight. I tried healing the wounded but it didn't seem to work". "Then the men targeted me. Scared not being able to do anything, I ran away and hid myself in a house. I am such a coward" and more tears started flowing down her cheek. "No I don't think it was a bad choice. In a situation like that anyone would try to flee. It was not cowardice" said Igneel. "Then what happened? Why did they set the village on fire?" asked Natsu, now curious. "They seemed to be commanded by someone. I think they received the order to eliminate all the adults and capture the children in the village. So they lit the houses on fire to kill the remaining adults who were hiding inside, including me" said Erica with sore eyes, after all the crying. "I passed out due to fear and the heat of the fire in the house and after that I don't remember anything after that until now" Erica finished. "So, I guess when they were checking for survivors I found you!" stated Natsu. "How did you escape and get to me, Natsu?" questioned Erica. "Luckily they didn't notice me amongst the burning houses" told Natsu with his signature grin. "Thank you… Natsu… Igneel, for saving me" Erica thanked them. "You're welcome!" replied Natsu smiling. "Hmph!" was all Igneel could manage. 'I think she will be a fine guardian for Natsu' thought Igneel, 'I need to find a way to bring these two closer'. "Wh-what are you going to do now, Erica?" Natsu put up a question not too sure whether to ask or not. "Huh? What am I going to do…?" the part came out lightly as Erica drifted into thought. Her eyes became watery again, as she remembered her dead husband. Her parents had passed away long ago and she had no siblings either, she had nowhere to go. As if Igneel's wish were heard, "Would you like to stay with us for a while?" asked Natsu. 'That's my boy, you have proven to be the mighty Igneel's son' smirked Igneel. Thinking for a while, "Okay, if it's not too much trouble for the two of you!" Erica agreed, blinking to remove the water in her eyes. Natsu perked up at the answer, "Yeah! Awesome" he yelled. 'I think this is for the best' Igneel was now happy.

Erica had agreed for a request from a kid never thinking how it would change her life forever.

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 **A/N: There you have it guys. My first fanfic's first chapter, I hope you had enjoyed it. I don't have plans to keep the storyline the same, with some changes to the story here and there. They may be big or they may be small, you have to wait for the fun. And as I mentioned in the summary Natsu will be OOC in this story coz that's what I like. Please review guys**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Writing the first chap was so much fun. Well, nothing has been this much fun in my boring engineering life. Here's the second chapter. I changed my writing style a bit to make it more enjoyable.**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own Fairy Tail.**

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Chapter Two: Another chance meeting

It had been a week since Erica had started living with the two. She was happy, though honestly she still couldn't accept the fact that everyone in the village were dead and the children were captured while she hid in a house cowering for her life. She felt bitter everyday morning but then forget all about it when she saw the bright and carefree face of Natsu. She felt a strange feeling while being around the two, she felt warm and loved. Even though she was with them for a week, Natsu and Igneel treated very well as if she was family from the very beginning. She couldn't help but smile when she saw the duo of the father and son. She could see Igneel being fatherly trying to do different stuff for Natsu just to help him and correct him. She also wanted to feel the same thing, but the memory of her dead husband resurfaced every time making her feel bad. But then again watching the two helped her recover from the pain.

"Hey Igneel, time to train!" called out Natsu, standing in front of the cave's mouth "Are you done sleeping? Let's go already its noon now". This got Natsu a growl of displeasure from the said dragon who then emerged out of the cave.

"This has to be the hundredth time you must have called out to me since the morning!"

replied Igneel annoyingly, "Why do you want to train when it's your day off?".

"I wanna show Erica how strong I've become after training in the woods alone the whole night!" said Natsu enthusiastically.

"Well, I don't think you have to show me that you're strong Natsu!" came Erica's voice from behind the tree nearby. She then got up and came to the place where Natsu and Igneel were.

"No, today you'll see a different me!" said Natsu, getting ready to show off his power. He then signaled Igneel to be the test target. This was the first time Erica was going to witness Natsu's training and it brought back fond memories of her own childhood.

With 'much effort' Igneel lazily agreed and just sat down in front of Natsu, who didn't look to fine with that, 'Different my ass, this is what he says all the time!' thought Igneel knowing all too well what was going to happen. "Let's get this over with!" was Igneel's bored response, who then closed his eyes.

Not too happy with the attitude he was presented with Natsu responded in a loud tone "Don't underestimate me, you overgrown lizard!" while thinking 'This should make Igneel take me seriously'. Little did he know that the result of that would be different.

Natsu wish was granted, but… 'Fine, I, FIRE DRAGON KING IGNEEL, will bless you with my annoyance' was Igneel's mind voice screaming anger and then he snapped opened his eyes.

Looking at the go signal provided by Igneel, without thinking twice Natsu charged forward "Here I go! **Fire Dragon's Roar!** ". It was as though timed had slowed down for Igneel. He analyzed the beam of raging fire and found it better aimed and more concentrated than previous ones. But it didn't justify the level of effort Natsu had put in perfecting the first spell he had learnt so he just dispersed it.

Noticing and probably expecting this Natsu had already prepared his next spell " **Fire Dragon's Iron fist** " and launched himself at the dragon, who simply swatted away the kid with his tail.

'Wow... What is he doing?' thought Erica sweat dropping at the way Natsu was brushed off without remorse. She felt that Natsu was just warming up or something, and so the mistake.

'Damn, I can't touch him' complained Natsu. Continuing his onslaught, he then got into a jumping stance and shouted " **Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!** " and dashed into Igneel.

Expecting this pattern of attacks Igneel just stopped Natsu dead in his tracks with his claw and pushed him away, giving him another go at an attack. " **Fire Dragon's Brilliant flame!** " gathering flames in both his hands and slamming them together to create a big ball of fire Natsu threw the ball at Igneel, who just punched Natsu right through it with great force knocking him out effectively ending the training session.

Erica, all the while witnessing the scene, quickly ran over to Natsu as her newly discovered motherly instincts kicked in and looked onto the newly created crater. Seeing the unconscious and bruised body of Natsu, she quickly commented "I think that was going a little overboard".

"O-Oh…" was the only reply Igneel could manage. But internally 'Well this'll just make things easier' Igneel was starting to feel happier about the reaction which Erica had displayed.

Sprinkling a little water on Natsu's face brought him to the conscious world forcefully. Feeling weak and hurt all over the body he opened his slowly to find a blurred face looking at him. "Mom..." he murmured, which didn't go unnoticed by Erica and Igneel. This caused a surprised reaction from Erica who had a very faint blush on her cheeks, she was overjoyed internally with the word 'mom'.

'Well this good, this is going in a way that is favorable' thought Igneel now seeing the motherly reaction of Erica and Natsu's unexpected help. 'I don't want Natsu to be alone' Igneel now looking at Erica with a internal smile.

As Natsu was coming to his senses, Erica quickly snapped out of her surprised state and helped him up and healed his injuries. Thinking back about how Natsu charged at Igneel "Natsu, I think you attack without analyzing the opponent. This is dangerous and Igneel just proved the fact, had Igneel been serious he could have killed you" advised Erica.

"But Igneel won't do that and I am strong because I use dragon slayer magic" stated Natsu highlighting the fact that he was a dragon slayer with a sturdy, durable body with great endurance.

"But your opponent won't have the same views as Igneel, because he is your father" replied Erica. "Knowing about your opponent can give you an edge in a fight"

"How so?" questioned Natsu. "And how do you know about fighting?" asked Natsu noticing the advice seemed that of an experienced fighter, which captivated him.

"Hehe, I was the best fighter there was in the school of martial arts I used to go to" replied Erica proudly with a sparkle in her eyes. "Natsu I'll help you to understand how knowing your opponent helps" told Erica confidently getting up and signaling Natsu also to get and follow which he did.

As Erica got into a fighting stance, Natsu noticed it looked odd rather different. "Okay Natsu, now attack with your fists or legs, no magic though" commanded Erica. "Are you sure? You'll get hurt and cry if I punch you too hard" Natsu asked with a tilted face.

"No, I won't. Now let's get started" replied Erica with a tick mark visible on her forehead. "Okay" with that Natsu lunged forward toward Erica with a fist cocked back. As he approached her, he thrust his fist forward only to be parried to another direction. This happened so fast, Natsu couldn't understand what happened.

"What just happened?" Natsu gave a puzzled look at Erica, who just had a hand out in Natsu's direction.

"I just read your move Natsu" stated Erica, "I predicted how you would attack me, so accordingly I moved and dodged it".

Natsu now realizing the point she had made and proven, asked for further details about the so called 'reading a person'. With more practical examples Erica finally taught the thick-headed Natsu, according to Igneel, the necessity to read an opponent.

Looking at the woman accomplish something that he couldn't for two whole years, in just a matter of minutes, Igneel thought 'How can I be called a teacher now, I have failed to uphold my name as the King of Fire Dragons in all aspects'. It hurt his pride so much that he cried anime tears at the thought of losing to a human woman in such a trivial matter.

'Well, this is for the best' thought Igneel now feeling significantly confident at the fact that Erica was another supportive figure for Natsu other than Natsu.

Erica became attached to Natsu over time, while teaching him the basics of fighting and other stuff. She now really felt like a mother. She had regained the happiness she had before she had lost her husband. Natsu on the other hand also had similar changes. He started to consult Erica more on problems he had with anything and the ones Igneel couldn't solve. The transition from Erica to mom was so smooth that he himself never realized that Erica meant more of a parent on whom he could rely on, just like Igneel, but the difference was that she was a lot more soft-hearted compared to Igneel.

As days passed by, Erica felt that leaving Natsu and Igneel would be another great pain in her life and a pain she wouldn't be able to tolerate. So she gave up on the idea of leaving them. This acted in favor of Igneel, who felt ecstatic at the development. Days became weeks and weeks became months. Living with two and forming a familial bond, Erica now became a certified Dragneel.

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Time Skip: Ten Months

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A lot of time had passed since Erica had joined the Dragneels. She enjoyed being with them and helped both Natsu and Igneel directly and indirectly, teaching them about human behavior as she had encountered many people during her time as the town nurse. She had a become accustomed to the life in the woods and liked it there, always peaceful and simple.

She had noticed that Igneel had started acting strange since a month. It seemed as though he tried to approach her but then suddenly turn away or give up on the idea. At first she just shrugged it off as mere coincidence but then it became more and more clear that, it wasn't the case.

So today she decided to consult him about his strange behavior. And sure enough she was right about the restlessness the dragon showed. "Igneel, we need to talk" asked Erica in manner which showed concern looking at the dragon, who perked up to the question.

'I guess the time is about right and I have no other choice in the matter now' sighed Igneel. "I should tell you this, but promise me not to utter a single word to Natsu" said Igneel glancing over to the said child who was sleeping.

"In about two months time I'll be leaving you two" stated Igneel in a low and solemn tone. "I need you to take over the responsibility of bringing up Natsu after I'm gone" saying so he was expecting a surprised reaction from Erica which he didn't get. Instead Erica's face became a little calmer now knowing the reason for the dragon's worry.

"So that's what it was all about" replied Erica calmly which surprised Igneel.

"Are you not going to ask the reason for my leave?" questioned Igneel "How are you not shocked?".

"Honestly, I was shocked to listen to the news which you game me now" expressed Erica "I understand the reasons that are making you not say such a thing to Natsu, but answer these two questions of mine...". "First, are you going to come back? And second, what will I do once you're gone?" said Erica, with a serious tone.

"I cannot answer the first question and the second question... I don't know myself" was Igneel's response. He felt guilty that he couldn't even provide necessary information about anything to the future guardian of his only son.

"I see" replied Erica. This only made things worse for the already guilty conscience of Igneel. Erica, being who she is, quickly changed the topic noticing Natsu getting up from his beauty sleep.

"I think the day has started… rise and shine Natsu" she called out to the said boy who had just woken up.

"Good morning, mom!" Natsu wished back. "Let's get something to eat, shall we?".

With that the daily routine of the trio had started off again. Igneel could only think about how Erica had managed to get things under control within moments. He was now assured Natsu was never going to be left alone.

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Time Skip: Two Months

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The fated day had come when Igneel was to leave the two.

Natsu got up early that day, pretty unusual. The reason being lack of warmth from a certain dragon. He got up and noticed that Erica was gone too. So he stretched out, dusted the grass off of his pants and walked out of the cave. Looking around, he found nothing but the golden sun rising in the far end of the horizon. It was beautiful. He looked at the mesmerizing scene for some time before snapping out of his gaze at the sound of his stomach growling. So looked around only to find Igneel missing from the scene.

"Igneel, time for breakfast, I'm hungry" shouted out Natsu. He got no response. He tried calling out again but to no avail.

"Stupid dragon must have gone to eat all by himself!" grunted Natsu.

"Fine then.. I'll go by myself" he muttered to himself. With that he took off to the forest.

"Burrrp… well I'm full now" said Natsu patting his belly. But something was strange. He couldn't find Igneel even in the forest. 'How come he's not even in the forest' Natsu thought to himself.

"Hey, where are you, Igneel? Come out already!" yelled Natsu, showing off his annoyance. He still got no response. "Mom, Igneel!" he yelled out again finding both his parents missing. Not getting the response, he dashed off in a random direction to look for them.

Running around he tried picking up Igneel's and Erica's scent. He found Erica's but not Igneel's. Now getting increasingly worried he started to look around running around a lot more not caring about his surroundings. He tried tracking Igneel's scent again and this time he found it. He ran off in the direction from where the scent was coming. While running he called out Igneel's name repeatedly hoping to notify the dragon about his presence. This caused Erica, who was nearby, to look for the source of the commotion, which she heard was Natsu. 'I think he found out that he's gone' thought Erica feeling sorry for Natsu.

Reaching the destination, Natsu found nothing again "Where are you, Igneel?" cried Natsu. He noticed that the scent was still there despite the absence of the said dragon. So he looked around and found a scarf, a scaly one, white in color, which gave off Igneel's scent.

"Igneel?" said Natsu in a tone which showed that he was on the verge of tears. "Did you leave me Igneel? Why?" yelled Natsu at the top of his voice. "Am I not that strong or am I not a good son?… Did you leave me because I didn't listen to you and be a good boy?" cried out Natsu in a broken voice, tears flowing down his cheeks.

"WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME IGNEEL!" shouting out at the top of his lungs, finally crying, falling down to his knees and then curling up on the ground.

Erica, hearing all the things Natsu said, ran towards him through the woods, with worry increasing with each step, only to look at a sight which horrified her to her core. There she saw a crying Natsu who looked so weak and vulnerable. The sobbing teary eyed mess he was only made things worse. She couldn't hold it in, she burst into tears herself and pulled Natsu into a hug. She couldn't bear the look of how Natsu was now as he cried into her shoulder. To make matters worse for her she couldn't even tell, Igneel had informed her beforehand that he was going to leave them. It ached her heart very much. Witnessing a breakup of a family right in front of her, her own family, was just too much. But, as a promise was made, she steeled her resolve of bringing up Natsu.

"Natsu listen to me, Igneel must have had his reasons to leave us. It must have been very difficult for him too to leave us" Erica tried to comfort Natsu. Though in reality, she was at a loss of words to calm the crying kid

At the word 'us' Natsu stopped crying and asked "Are you a you too going to leave me too, mom?" with a sad tone.

"No, I will never ever leave you Natsu, EVER!" replied Erica strongly, pulling Natsu into another hug, only this time to be reciprocated. She now felt that the resolve she made was further strengthened after looking at Natsu's vulnerable figure. 'I cannot let Natsu cry ever again' she said to herself.

"Look, this scarf is a reminder of Igneel so treasure it. And remember, he's always with us" said Erica wiping Natsu's tears off his cheek as well as her own.

"Okay" Natsu replied. He then wrapped the scarf around his neck with a smile on his face.

"And one more thing Natsu… Boys don't cry that easily" said Erica, making Natsu pout in a cute way.

"I guess Igneel really wanted me to become his guardian" murmured Erica.

"Did you say something, mom?" asked Natsu hearing his mom murmur something.

"Nothing, just saying I am happy to have such a good and obedient son" replied Erica immediately causing Natsu's face to glow brightly.

"You bet I am, Igneel would never understand that" stated Natsu with a big grin.

"Okay, let's get breakfast already, its gonna be noon pretty soon" stated Erica getting ready to go hunting.

"Yeah, I was gonna do that" replied Natsu in a matter-of-fact tone.

'Life isn't going to be anything like before, most definitely not' Erica thought to herself gazing over Natsu who was now his usual self.

* * *

Time Skip: One Year

* * *

The daily lives of the mother and son duo had changed drastically. They now lived in a house near a small town instead of the woods. They periodically used to go to the town to get supplies, where the people of the city got to know that they were mages. The people requested for help, from the duo, in things they couldn't do with normal human might in exchange for free food or other stuff.

Over a considerable amount of time they became an integral part of the town, though they lived outside of it.

One fine day, while out hunting the duo found out that the animals in the forest had become scarce. How? Thy didn't know. Both felt it strange but just let go it because it seemed like a natural phenomenon.

But when they approached the house they heard that the town was eerily bustling. An explosion, followed by the rising smoke caught their attention confirming their suspicions. They went off to the town to check the cause.

Upon arrival they experienced déjà vu. The people who had attacked Erica's village had victimized another village, with the same objective of capturing children. They discovered something else, they were too late. All the adults were massacred. It was truly a sight to behold. the collateral damage done this time was low, but the casualties had increased greatly. Natsu's blood boiled at the scene and Erica just stood there reliving her traumatic experience.

"It appears we are too late" said Erica looking at the scene.

"Oh… but we have to stop these people from doing what they are doing now!" Natsu replied back, "I've picked up a familiar scent. I out found where they are, lets go get them".

"No, I think it will be a bad idea if just the two of us confront them, we have to look for survivors" proposed Erica considering the risk of both of them getting severely injured or even killed because of showing resistance. The very thought scared her and she couldn't take risks.

"Okay we'll do that" agreed Natsu.

As soon as the duo started to an action they heard a voice. They followed the source and saw a young girl, with faded green hair, being captured. They quickly hid behind the wall of the adjacent building.

"Let go of me you assholes. You won't take me anywhere" shouted the girl trying to struggle out of the grip of the man who was holding her. He then bound her hands together with a set of cuffs. They had strange markings on them, and as soon as they were put on the girl's hands she lost her strength.

"You're coming with us whether you like it or not. You don't have a say in this matter" commanded one of the three men dressed in black who had the girl by her wrists.

"What is an asshole, mom?" asked Natsu curiously tilting his head.

"U-Uh… Is that what you find important now, focus on rescuing the girl" sighed Erica lightly smacking Natsu's head.

"Ow... right, right... rescue the girl, rescue the girl..." Natsu corrected himself looking over to the trio of men and the captive girl.

"Its the same as your village, mom. They work in teams of three" remembered Natsu. He remembered that the men were interested solely in the children and killed the elders.

"Let go of me…" the girl cried, struggling even harder than before with tears in her eyes.

"Quit struggling you pink brat" growled the man in annoyance at the way the girl was trying to escape. "Even if you try to escape, you can't go anywhere… a homeless brat like you should come with us, we'll give food, clothes and shelter, and a LOT of WORK" said the man with an evil, sinister grin, which sent shivers down Natsu and Erica.

Watching the cruel act of the three men made Natsu jump out of his cover, but was stopped just in time by Erica who signaled that it wasn't the right time to act. They were still trying to find a proper time to ambush the three. They were unsure if jumping to save the girl would be fruitful or not. Then the unexpected happened.

The girl had noticed Natsu little movement. "Hey, if someone is there, please… please save me" shouted the girl. The men, now alerted, followed the gaze of the girl to notice the someone hiding behind the wall.

"Our cover is blown! We have to move, now!" exclaimed Erica.

"Oops, they spotted us, thanks girly…" complained Natsu.

Both looked at each other with 'you thinking, what I'm thinking' face and got ready to battle the three.

"Hey there's somebody there, get 'em" one of the black cloaked men commanded. "We might find interesting ones, so catch them no matter what!" and then the other two dashed towards the building.

"Hey idiots, come and get me" Natsu taunted the approaching men, poking his head out of the wall with a goofy face and his tongue sticking out, angering the two.

As they approached the alley in which the two were there, both their faces met with a giant wooden log.

"GAAHH!" both of them shouted out in pain. Wiping their noses, they ducked under the log and found themselves being taunted by a pink haired woman and a pink haired kid again, who were standing at the end of the alley. Enraged at being insulted they ran towards the pink haired duo, who ran away splitting up in opposite directions.

"GO TAKE CARE OF THE WOMAN, I'LL GET THE BASTARD KID" shouted the taller of the two. He then ran off in Natsu's direction and signaled the other to do the same.

"Mom, what does bastard mean?" asked Natsu, again making one of his signature curious faces.

"Stop teaching my SON UNNECESSARY WORDS" yelled Erica, a tick mark visible on her head, kicking the man approaching her in the balls with all her might( **A/N: Ouch... That must've hurt, like a lot, unless...** ). "Now Natsu, send him flying flying." signaled Erica. She then prepared her newly learned offensive wind magic.

 **With Natsu…**

"Hey old man, stop bothering other people, it's bad manners" commented Natsu with a smirk on his face. This caused the man to snap.

"Manners you say..." he spoke in low tone and then shouted "I'LL TEACH YOU WHAT ARE MANNERS WHEN I TAKE YOU THERE, YOU PINK HAIRED BASTARD" now pissed beyond recovery. He then charged towards Natsu.

"W-Wait, time out" cried Natsu, stopping the man "Okay, tell me what does bastard mean, is it some kinda compliment or another name for 'kid'?" asked Natsu with another curious face.

'W-What? Is this kid crazy or something?' sweatdropped the man, but resumed his assault on Natsu, which ended in a not so pleasant way.

Natsu being Natsu, attacked with his signature " **Fire Dragon's Iron Fist** ". Natsu was confident that his move was strong enough to knock out a person. However, the receiving end wasn't so lucky. The height difference made the situation awkward for the cloaked man. When the attack was done the man fell with a thud. *BOOM*

"uuhhhhuuu… " came the man's cry in a whimper, clutching the space between his legs rolling on the ground to relieve himself from the excruciating pain.

"Ooh, didn't expect that it would be so easy, oh well" grinned Natsu sheepishly.

(Now Natsu, send him flying flying)

As the man staggered to get up he saw his life flash before him once again.

" **Fire Dragon's Roar** " roared Natsu, and at the same time " **Wind Blast** " came Erica's wind spell.

Both the attacks hit their respective targets and sent them flying towards each other. They crashed into one another knocking each other out.

"They're down for the count, lets go get the other guy" stated Erica as she approached the pile two men and Natsu, who was studying the two knocked out men. Agreeing to the point the duo quickly took off to the previous location. Arriving there they noticed that while waiting for his comrades the third man had moved quite the distance with girl still struggling in his hands.

"Hold it right there" shouted Natsu, alerting the cloaked man. The both of them slowly started approaching the man.

"It appears you have taken care of my comrades and yes, I would have to…" replied the man in a creepy tone "I have to capture you and kill the woman" continuing, he let go of the girl, only to pin her under his foot, now smiling like a mad man. "Though it's a shame I have to kill such a beauty".

'I am a beauty' Erica complemented herself repeatedly in a trance, drool trickling down the side of her mouth.

"What are you doing? MOM!" sweatdropped Natsu at his mother's random reactions, then snapping her out of her entranced state.

"Mom, this guy is bad and creepy" told Natsu, with a frowned face.

"Yeah" replied Erica. "Let's teach this 'bad guy' a lesson" signaled Erica, telling Natsu to attack along with her.

"Natsu, you go first" said Erica.

"Okay, **Fire Dragon's Iron Fist** " Natsu launched himself at the man.

The man redirected Natsu's fist behind him, surprising Natsu who just had a rough landing.

He then bent sideways a little to dodge the incoming **Wind Blade**. It just went past him and hit the unsuspecting Natsu.

"NATSU!" shouted Erica worried her attack hit her son.

"I'm fine, mom" replied Natsu, slowly recovering from the unexpected attack.

"But you're not going to be... " said the man and he hit Natsu with a blast of dark magic sending him flying further away.

"No!" shouted Erica looking at the scene. She rushed toward Natsu but was stopped by a another dark magic blast from the man. She retaliated with a barrage of wind blades but the man just dodged them all.

"Oh, don't even think about it. You, are going to die and he's, coming with me" said the man, laughing maniacally. He sent another wave of dark magic towards Erica in an effort to kill her which she dodged in the nick of time. Looking at the near miss he decided to toy with her, completely forgetting the girl underneath his foot.

'These guys are trying to save me and I'm just… just so useless' looking at the two who were struggling because of the man's power.

"Stop hurting her" said Natsu in a low yet strong tone, finally getting up, with his bangs covering his eyes. This caught the man's attention.

"Oh, and what will you do?" replied the man with an evil smirk on his face as he sent another condensed wave of dark magic towards both this time.

The magic made contact with Erica this time causing her to cry out in pain. On the other hand, Natsu just took the hit and then recovered quite quickly.

"STOP HURTING HER" Natsu shouted, anger clearly visible in his eyes and he lunged forward at the man with a flaming fist.

The man just redirected the fist again. Then he suddenly ducked under another fist in the nick of time. This time it was Erica who attacked him. Natsu made another effort and was thrown away this time. The man then marched forward towards Natsu while parrying another fist from Erica. As the two relentlessly attacked the man, he just either dodged or parried the attack. Though he didn't have time to counter attack, he effortlessly dodged the continuous attacks.

'I have to help them, they are really struggling with this' thought the girl worriedly. Then it clicked in her mind 'I can stop his movements'

Natsu and Erica now both exhausted and hurt all over were running low on magic and stamina, whereas the man was completely fine.

"Lets finish this boring one-sided fight" said the man with a sinister smirk, gathering his magic in his hands.

"Fine" replied the duo and prepared their respective magic spells as well.

" **Fire Dragon's Roar** " " **Storm Wind** " the duo let out strong spells from opposite sides. The attack combo was pretty strong, from one side approached a raging torrent of fire and another side a strong blunt wall of wind, the situation looked dire for the cloaked man. 'Heh, looks pretty strong but it's useless when it won't hit the target' thought the man cockily. In an effort to dodge, he tried to jump and fly but realized that he couldn't even move. His mistake of noticing his frozen legs for a split second caused his defeat, as the two attacks collided, injuring the man severely.

"GAAAAHHHHH!" cried the man in pain as the attacks crippled his body. He fell on the ground all bruised and burnt. "WHY YOU? HOW DARE YOU HURT ME!" furiously shouted the man. Then suddenly the purple orb in his necklace started to glow. Realizing the signal, "Heh... you're lucky, I'll let you off the hook this time, but the next time won't be the same" threatened the man, before disappearing in a cloud of purple dust.

"Whew! That was difficult" sighed the the mother and son duo in unison, before collapsing on the ground because of the sheer amount of exhaustion.

"Thank you for saving me, I'm really grateful, how can I ever repay you" said the girl looking at the duo, standing next to them now.

"Ah, there's no need for that, by the way what is your name?" asked Erica looking at the girl.

"My name is Liliana, but you can call me Lily. And nice to meet you" replied Lily. She looked like she was older than Natsu. She had a cute face with sky blue eyes, green hair that was pink halfway through and went down to her lower back. She had a fair complexion and was wearing a pink gown that complemented her skin.

"So, what are your names? And where do you come from?" asked Lily.

"My name is Erica and this here is my son Natsu, nice to meet you too" replied Erica, while getting up, again blushing at the son part.

'What a doting mother' thought Lily

"Hello, nice to meet you too" said Natsu while getting up himself.

"We live nearby the town just a kilometers away, its strange you've never heard about us?" asked Erica.

"Oh, I just lived alone so maybe that's why I didn't know" replied Lily looking at the ground sadly at the word alone.

"You must have heard about the pink duo, right?" Natsu questioned this time. "That's us".

"Oh, you're the famous mother-son duo who helped the town in various tasks!" exclaimed Lily with enthusiasm.

"So, when did the cloaked men attack?" asked Erica with a serious tone.

"It was in the morning just after nine 'o clock" was Lily's answer.

'Its different from the last time. So they attack at random times I guess' thought Erica.

"I think we should look for survivors now" suggested Natsu remembering how he saved Erica last time.

The trio split up and looked for survivors in the whole to town only to group up empty handed. The target city this wasn't destroyed this time, only the adults were killed and the children were abducted.

"This time they were thorough with their plan" stated Erica.

"So, have you encountered these guys before?" asked Lily.

"Yes" the duo replied in unison.

"The last time I was the one who saved mom!" proclaimed Natsu proudly. Erica only giggled at Natsu's antics.

"Oh, wow" said Lily. "So how did you save her?" she asked.

Natsu described the whole story of how he saved Erica and how Erica became a part of his family. Listening to all what Natsu said only brought joyful expressions to Lily's face. Seeing them Erica could understand that she had never had a family. When the story telling was done, Erica could see that the girl was overjoyed at the word 'family'.

"Well, I guess I should take my leave, I've bothered you two enough already" said Lily in slightly sad tone.

"But where will you go?" asked Natsu out of the blue, surprising lily. Erica being with Natsu for a considerable amount of time was expecting this question.

"I don't know, I'll just go somewhere alone, I've always been alone" said Lily sadly, stressing on the alone a little.

"So… you've been alone all this time?" asked Natsu.

"Y-Yes…" stuttered out Lily.

"I don't think that'll be the case anymore" said Erica "How about you live with us, as a part of our family"

"Family?… Really? Can I live with you guys?" raising her head with hope and glint in her eyes.

"Well, of course. I would love to have a sister" said Natsu with a big toothy grin.

"I've always wanted a daughter, so why not!" Erica said confirming Natsu's decision.

"Awesome, I'll finally get to have a family. A brother and a mother" cried Lily, with her eyes glowing with ecstacy.

"Let us reintroduce ourselves. I'm Erica Linette Dragneel" said Erica.

"And I'm Natsu Dragneel, your brother" said Natsu with big bright grin.

"Welcome to the Dragneel family, Liliana Dragneel" said the duo in unison, extending a hand out to the said girl.

* * *

 **A/N: Finally done with the second chapter. It was awesome writing this chapter.**

 **Liliana had no second name, as she was and orphan and she is 2 years older than Natsu, so she's actually 10.**

 **As for the magics**

 **Natsu: Fire Dragon Slayer Magic**

 **Erica: Healing, Wind Magic**

 **Liliana: Ice magic(not ice-make though)**

 **If you're wondering if Natsu is going to look for Igneel. No he won't. Pairings will come in the later chapters. So review and stay tuned.**

 **Until then bye.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hello guys, i'm back with another update. So enjoy...**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail.**

Chapter two: A new adventure begins

* * *

It had been a year since Lily started living with Natsu and Erica. She got to know of the history of both her family members and was amazed at how they lived with a dragon and all. She was really happy that she finally had a family that cared for her and she could care for. She was very helpful to Erica and was a caring sister for Natsu. Her character changed over time. She was competitive like Natsu and also calm like Erica, but with the exception of profanity in her speech, which Natsu had picked up quite a lot, adding to Erica's annoyance and worry. Natsu also acquired the calmness of Erica but his competitive nature was more predominant. Erica, however, didn't change much.

"Goddamn it, stupid log won't budge an inch!" complianed Natsu trying to move a log twice as thick and three times as long as he was.

"I'll help you move the log, Natsu" said Lily with a smile, who came to assist Natsu in moving the log to their house.

"Thanks, sis" replied Natsu with a smile of his own.

The two kids were helping their mom in getting fire wood for the stove they had. The stove was a traditional one, which used fire wood. The trio had a new house now, because the old town where they lived was destroyed and they had no means to get supplies. So they travelled and found a town that was bigger than the old one, but was still old fashioned. They felt not too separated from their old town as the culture was pretty much the same. The only thing that felt odd was they were completely alien to the town, not knowing anyone or anything there. That didn't faze them though. So they built a house for themselves near to the town.

The house was bigger now, as it had to accomodate another room. It was made of neatly aligned stone blocks held together by wooden beams. The house looked pretty neat because of the fact that the stone blocks were cut very fine and were arranged in a perfect manner. This gave the house a sense of elegance. On the other hand the inside was pretty simple. It had three rooms, two of which had a bed and the other had a hammock. The kitchen was attached to the dining room. The dining room had a small round table which could seat a maximum of five people. Overall the house was cozy and pretty comfortable for the three that lived in it.

"Natsu, lets go shopping" said Lily as she was pulling out a bag from a shelf in the kitchen.

"What are we going to shop for? If it's food then lets get meat" replied Natsu.

"Okay, but too much meat is bad for you, Natsu" stated Lily, now ready to leave.

"Wait for me too" said Erica from the kitchen. She then hurriedly came out, with her hair a mess and her dress and face coated with flour and other cooking ingredients.

"Mom, how?" asked Natsu, looking at the condition of his mother.

"Hehe, I'll get ready soon, so wait just a tiny bit" said Erica sheepishly.

"Oh, not this again" said Natsu and Lily in unison, fully expecting what would be happening next.

With that Erica went into her room to get herself ready.

After what seemed like an eternity she came out ready for shopping. "How do you take this long to get ready?" asked the siblings in disbelief.

"That's a woman thing" retorted Erica "Oh, don't worry Lily you'll understand me soon enough"

"Haaaa? I am not as slow as you, mom" replied Lily with a scorn, while sticking her tongue out of her mouth.

'Seriously?' Natsu thought to himself with a placid 'I really don't understand girls'.

"Lets go already!" said Natsu stopping the 'needless' argument between the two.

Then, they locked the door and left for the town. "What should we get today? I want new clothes, my old ones are kinda... old" said Erica.

"Okay, but lets not go to THAT shop" said the sibling pair to their mom. Both had their own reasons for doing so.

The said shop had a salesman who was a young man about the age of Erica. Natsu disliked the fact that the guy always flirted with his mom, in the few moments, when they came to visit the shop. 'Slick bastard' were his thoughts.

Lily on the other hand, 'Haa, its so nice to get a boyfriend' thought Lily 'except only mom gets to have one' internally pouting at the fact that she was still a kid for such a 'luxury'.

Both kids were well educated in the concepts of love and affection, courtesy Erica and her 'amazing' husband. She felt that even though she is young she would not think about marrying another guy as it would bring sorrow of the memories of her late husband. Both the siblings were aware of that fact and were happy about it but there always lingered a doubt about that, just a little bit.

"Okay, okay we'll go somewhere else this time. There are lots of shops yet to be visited." said Erica.

After visiting a few shops and getting the required stuff they roamed around the town for quite a while. This became a habit of theirs'. The trio always admired the fact that there was no day in the town that was not busy. They liked the town not only because of that but because of how friendly the people were there. Just like the old town they were quickly recognized as mages. The respect they got just because of that was pretty amazing and surprising, though they honestly didn't like being respected for nothing.

"You should honestly join a guild you know" proposed the shop vendor of a juice stall at which the trio came often to get juice.

"What is a guild?" asked the trio curiously.

"You didn't know. Well... it's like a group up of mages gathered under a common name who help other people who aren't mages." replied the vendor. "They take requests from us normal people and do their work in exchange for money."

"MONEY!" said Erica imagining herself with money.

The trio's current financial situation was very grim. They were flat broke. And the fact that only Erica had the knowledge to manage it only made it worse. Their current source of money was selling rare meat and rare herbs that they obtained from the forest. Other than that they had no other source of income. They would sell the mentioned stuff only when the current stock of money was depleted. But they didn't really need money to live their simple lives. But then, there is also the concept of 'want', right?

"Oh, so how much do much they get for these requests?" inquired Erica.

"A few thousand jewels to a million depending upon the request" replied the vendor.

"Oh that's quite a lot of money" said Erica, 'A thousand is the minimum' she thought to herself.

"So where can we find a guild?" asked the three, Natsu and Lily joining in the conversation.

"Oh, you didn't know, we have one right here" said the vendor with disbelief "And its the best one in all of Fiore... The name is Fairy Tail" continued the vendor with a proud tone.

"Oh wow, we didn't really know" said Lily.

"We'll see if we wanna join, but thanks for the suggestion" said Erica.

"Glad to help... Ah your change" reminded the vendor.

After collecting the change the trio got back home and pondered on the topic of joining a guild. The trio had mixed feelings about the whole guild joining thing. The concept of money was the most alluring for Erica, not being broke was the best. But honestly working among a group of professional mages made the trio nervous. They had not encountered many mages in their lives until the village incident. And the incident actually left a bad impression about mages in their minds.

"Well, I really don't know about the joining the whole guild thing is any good" said Lily.

"Yeah, I think so too" agreed Natsu.

"But it won't hurt to join them right?" said Erica.

"Yeah... but I really don't know" was Natsu's and Lily's reply.

"That aside for now, what should we have for dinner?" said Erica, tired of pondering on the topic too much.

The siblings, noticing the need to change the subject, replied with their smiling faces. The day had finally concluded with the three still unsure of whether to join or not. They kept their thoughts to themselves and refrained from talking as they thought it would be pointless. The nest day morning was different however.

After getting ready the trio sat down at the dining table for breakfast. The first few moments were either complete silence or munching sounds. So each of them thought of bringing up the topic and placing their thoughts about the matter.

"Let's go join Fairy Tail" said Natsu.

"I think we should join Fairy Tail" said Lily.

"We should check out Fairy Tail" said Erica. All of them saying it at the exact same moment.

The three of them looked at each other with surprise because they had the same thought. Then they just smiled which instantly turned into full blown laughter. After recovering the laughing fit they felt relieved that all three had the same thought.

"I guess our joining Fairy Tail was a given" said Erica. The siblings gave a nod in agreement.

"Okay, so let's get ready to go." said Natsu as he rushed into his room.

After five or so minutes, Natsu came out along with Lily and stood in the front of the house. 'Not again' were their thoughts. After another eternity the older woman stepped out of the house locked it and signaled the other two to go.

As they didn't know the location they consulted the town people to which they pointed to building that was significantly larger than the other around town. So with confident faces they marched off toward the location of the building. As they were approaching closer they noticed the building was growing in size exponentially, which caused their confident faces to become more and more nervous.

When they were halfway through town they noticed three kids, who all had silver hair and looked about the age of Lily, talking to a man. The man stood in posture that showed that he was pleading the kids for a favor. Then he led them to nearby run-down building and pointed to a random area in the building. Then, they saw another kid, much older than any of them, jump out of the roof and start running.

"That guy, who just jumped, is a thief... I heard them talking!" stated Natsu, recollecting the information he gathered just by listening. He then informed Erica and Lily that the kids were from from Fairy Tail and had come there to do a request from the man.

"Wow, the mages there are so strong that they sent their to children to do petty requests" said Lily amazed that the guild was so strong.

"I think this is a good chance, if we help them do their request, the guild members will consider our request to join their guild" proposed Erica.

"Okay, let's catch that thief" replied Natsu with enthusiasm.

The three then took off in the direction in which the thief ran off. They had quite the difficulty in tracking the thief but they did. It was a long time since the three had any sort of thrilling experience and they loved it.

"Mom, I think he went that way" said Lily.

"Let's follow him" Erica quickly replied and sped up her pace.

When they had finished tracking and following the thief they had exited the narrow pathways in between the houses and were in a barren field with just grass and trees here and there.

"We caught you, now" said Natsu as he ran toward the thief and caught him.

"Let me go, I need to get this to my old man" came the reply of the person caught. The voice seemed odd for a guy, so when Natsu turned the guy to his back he found out that he was infact a girl.

"A girl?" said Natsu surprisingly.

While Natsu was in the surprised state, the girl took opportunity to escape the hold by pushing the pink haired boy down. As soon as she fled the three, who were after her originally, arrived at the scene.

"She got away" murmured Lily standing beside Natsu while Erica had not arrived at the scene.

"We came to help!" shouted Natsu looking at the three, who arrived, with a nervous expression. Bad idea.

Misunderstanding the situation, the tallest of the three kids, who was a girl, shouted "i see, so you two are the thief's accomplice" as she transformed into a demon like creature with horns, wings and a tail and signaled the other two to attack Natsu and Lily.

"Nooo! You got it all wron- Woah!" dodged Natsu nearly missing the attack thrown by the girl.

"Elfman, Lisanna get the green girl, I'll get the boy" said the girl now identifying the other boy and girl with her.

"Okay Mira, be careful!" replied the two as they themselves transformed into other beings, one being a cat and other with an iron arm.

"Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?" said Mira with a sadistic smile, expecting the latter to happen. It did.

"No! We aren't the thief's helpers" retorted Natsu in loud voice, dodging another ball of dark energy.

"The hard way it is" said Mira with a devious smirk, totally ignoring Natsu's reply, charging towards Natsu ready to engage in close combat.

Natsu now understaning that words won't matter got into a fighting stance ready to counter any blow he was going to recieve. But that didn't happen, atleast from the front instead Mira attacked Natsu on his back with a fist. Natsu felt it, the punch was strong. He let out a small cry of pain as he skid to a stop, still standing. Then he turned around to face Mira.

"Oh... so you can take a hit or two. That's great and all but that's your last" saying so she went for another attack at Natsu.

As his fighting instincts had finally kicked in to overdrive mode, in an effort to dodge the punch he back-flipped delivering a sharp skyward kick to the girl's chin sending her sky high.

"Ahh...! That hurt, you thief bastard" growled Mira with annoyance. The kick also surprised her, which added to her annoyance.

"I keep telling you, I'm no thief" shouted back Natsu pissed at the remark.

"No thief accepts that they are one. Get ready to be annihilated" shot back Mira with anger in her voice.

Just as she was about to attack Natsu again, "NATSU DUCK!" called out Lily. Two beaten up figures flew past Natsu as he ducked and crashed into Mira pinning her to the ground.

* * *

 **Moments earlier with Lily...**

"We'll help Mira catch the thief" said Lisanna, getting into a pouncing pose.

"Catching thieves is manly!" exclaimed Elfman, cocking his iron arm backwards.

"Oh I see, two idiots for me and a treat for Natsu, I'm not a thief though" said Lily in a displeasured tone "Oh well, might as well have some fun".

"Calling others idiot is not manly" replied back Elfman. "You go first Lis"

"Haaaaah!" Lisanna pounced on Lily trying to claw her, who just dodged it.

"Too slow" said Lily.

"Get this then!" charged Elfman.

Lily predicted that and quickly dodged in such a way that Elfman headed straight for Lisanna. Seeing that he couldn't stop his momentum, he crashed into her even though he tried to stop.

"Sorry!" said Elfman as he stood up and helped Lisanna as well.

"Hey, you should stay with your sister, she knows to fight better" " **God Hand** " saying so she summoned a huge hand made of ice from the ground and made it attack the two siblings.

"Ice magi-" said the both as the fist made contact with them, knocking them out, sending them flying toward Natsu and Mira.

"NATSU DUCK" Lily signaled...

* * *

All the while a certain thief was watching from a tree, concealed from plain sight with her comrades ready to ambush. "Three down, two more to go. Fight, foolish brats" said the thief. She then signaled her companions to get ready to ambush as soon as one of them falls.

"I'll get you for this, you hurt my family" growled Mira furiously, slowly trying to get out of the pile she was in.

"Oh, then what about us, you hurt my family too" countered Lily.

"Oh... so even thieves have feelings of love, huh?" commented Mira now angering Lily to no end.

"We're no thieves, I've been telling you for so long" Natsu spoke this time.

And the three exchanged verbal abuses for quite some time annoying the thief. 'This is going nowhere, I'll have to do something about this. I can't escape even if one of them is conscious' thought the thief about the unfavorable situation. "Attack!" shouted the thief as she and her comrades pounced on the unsuspecting trio.

"Shit!... I totally forgot about this!" said Natsu remembering the actual task they were supposed to do. As the three were about to be ambushed, " **Storm Wind** " a strong wind pushed away the group of thieves, who were blown away quite far.

"Phew, made it in the nick of time" said Erica.

"Mom! Where were you?" said the Natsu and Lily together.

"Oh. I was here alright. Just enjoying the show" said Erica, grinning sheepishly.

"Wha...?" sweatdropped the three.

"Don't you forget about us" said one from the group of thieves.

"Right! Let's get them Natsu, Lily" said Erica as she got into a fighting stance.

"I'm all fired up, now" replied Natsu, who was cracking his knuckles

"Yeah, what he said" said Lily, who got her ice magic ready.

And that was the last seen of the thieves, as they fled after a thorough beat down.

"This isn't the last you've seen of us" screamed one of them crying anime tears, running like dogs with their tails between their legs.

Looking at the scene the conscious ones could only laugh. After a hearty laugh Natsu and Lily helped Mira get up while Erica brought Elfman and Lisanna back to the conscious world. She tended to their wounds. Both parties then apologized for their actions.

"We're sorry" said Lisanna and Elfman realizing the misunderstanding.

"It's okay no problem" said Natsu.

"I won't apologize, I didn't do anything wrong" said Mira disagreeing with her siblings.

"Yeah don't. Who wants your apology anyways, rude bitch" shot back Lily.

"What did you say, ogre hair?" retorted Mira with her own insult.

"Why you little!" charged Lily but was held back by Natsu and the same happened with other side.

"Please apologize to them Mira, we are in the wrong here" said Lisanna with puppy dog eyes exploiting Mira's weakness.

"Ugh..." unable to resist the power of the cuteness, she complied with the request.

"I'll forgive you. But if you hurt Natsu again I'll pulverize you!" replied Lily sternly.

Natsu could only giggle at the ongoing scene catching the attention of Lisanna, who joined him soon.

'Again with the profanity' Erica thought with a placid expression.

"Reminding of which, I demand an explanation, mom" scoffed Lily.

"About what sweet Lily?" replied Erica in very buttery sweet tone with a chuckle which further ticked off Lily.

After calming down "What were you doing mom?" asked Lily once again.

"I was actually trying to figure out how many thieves were there, because I noticed that the thief lead us into an open field with plenty of trees surrounding it, it looked more like an planned ambush" said Erica in a serious tone "So I waited as back up just in case all the thieves ambushed us!"

"Oh, sorry mom" was Lily's reply.

"Ah, I forgot to ask! You kids are from Fairy Tail right?" Erica tried to confirm.

"Yeah" replied three showing off their guild marks, all of them white.

"We... w-we would like to join your guild" said the pink trio with nervousness evident in their speech.

"Oh, follow us and help you join!" said Mira signaling them to follow.

The three followed them to the guild, nervousness creeping up their spine with each step. When they arrived at the doors of the guild, that stood tall and mighty, three were consumed fully by nervousness with their eyes spiraling infinitely. The younger white haired siblings could only giggle at the three's behavior but didn't utter a word.

"We're back" exclaimed the three siblings as they pushed the door and walked into the guild. The following three only walked in with stiff bodies thinking about how to behave professionally.

When they arrived inside their nervousness was replaced by astonishment. They were amazed at the thing called a guild and when their gaze turned to where the members were supposed to be seated they saw kids, lots of them, sitting at the guild tables.

"So many kids! Are they also members of the guild?" asked the Natsu to no one specifically stressing on the also.

"They are the members!" replied Lisanna standing next to Natsu.

"Oh! Wow!" replied Natsu enthusiastically.

"Master, these three here want to join our guild" called out Mira.

"Master?" three froze up in nervousness which magically reappeared out of nowhere.

As they waited patiently they saw a small figure come out a room on the second floor of the building. He wore a white cowl which as the size of his body and had a large half bald head with a thick white mostache, honestly an old man.

"So they you to join out guild eh?" said the man.

"Y-yes, we would love to!" replied the three nervously.

"So what are your names and your magics?" asked the old man.

"I'm Natsu Dragneel, this is my sis and my mom and I use dragon slayer magic!" said Natsu proudly pointing to the other two.

"I'm Liliana Dragneel, Natsu's sister and I use ice magic" said as jumped onto Natsu.

"I'm Erica Dragneel and I use healing and wind magic" said Erica giggling at her kids.

'Interesting bunch' thought the old man with smirk visible on his face.

"Mira give them their guild marks!" said the old man with a smiling face "Welcome to Fairy Tail, I'm Makarov Dreyar, the guild master of Fairy Tail".

"Where do you want it and which color?" asked Mira.

"Right shoulder and red color" said Natsu pointing at the required area. Mira then pressed the stamp and lifted it to reveal a bright red Fairy Tail mark.

"Same area as Natsu with sky blue color" said Erica and got her mark as well. She showed it off to Natsu who admired it.

"For me, on the same area as well with green color and pink outline" said Lily with a smile.

"Damn, I'm stuck with you" mumbled Mira which didn't go unnoticed by Lily.

"What did you say, bitch?"spat Lily, pissing Mira who replied with her own insult.

This soon escalated into a verbal cat fight. Noticing this a black haired kid walked up to Natsu and let out his own thoughts on the current situation.

"Hey pinky stop your sister!" said the boy.

"Why? I don't wanna get in between them, you can stop Mira, pervert" replied Natsu.

"I'm not a pervert" said the kid.

"Gray, clothes!" reminded another girl. At which Lisanna was blushing madly.

"Ah... shit!" Gray complained before running off to find his clothes.

"By the way, I'm Cana Alberona" said the girl, from before.

"And I'm Lisanna Strauss" said Lisanna standing in front of Natsu.

"He's Elfman, my brother" she said pointing to the white haired boy, who came up the group standing there.

"I'm Elfman Strauss and I'm manly. It's nice to meet you" said Elfman.

"It's nice to you too" replied Natsu and Erica.

"And the one fighting you sister is our elder sister, Mirajane" said Lisanna introducing the last of the Strauss siblings. She then offered to give them a tour of the guild. Natsu agreed.

"Hey sis, come over here" said Natsu.

Lily quickly arrived, completely ignoring Mira, to where Natsu was. "Let's take a tour of the guild".

After introducing the rest of the members and a tour of the guild three had settled down on a random table.

"Wow this place is so cool" said Natsu excitedly.

"Yeah, this place is like home to us, everyone here is like family" said Lisanna with smile.

"So how did you get to know about Fairy Tail" asked Lisanna curiously to Natsu.

Natsu then described how they lived near the town for quite some time. How people suggested them to join a guild to earn money. This then raised another question of how they came near the town. And then this linked to that and that to that and so on until the whole story of how Natsu was found by Igneel, a dragon. Listeneing to the story Lisanna was fascinated by the life Natsu had lived. Natsu, on the other hand, was ecstatic that someone other than his family belived his story.

"So you believe my story of being with a dragon?" asked Natsu just to confirm.

"Yeah, it's all so amazing" said Lisanna.

"Yo pinky, how should I believe that you lived with a dragon?" asked Gray.

"If you don't believe me ask my mom, she too lived with Igneel" replied Natsu.

"Why should I ask your mom? You have to prove it too me" demanded Gray.

Listening to his Lily came running towards Natsu with the words "Stop picking on my brother".

"Hiding behind your sister's back, you coward!" commented Gray, angering Natsu.

"Stop ignoring me, you green bitch" shouted Mira while approaching Lily.

"What did you say?" was the simultaneous reply of Natsu and Lily, with tick marks on both their heads.

With that provocation both Natsu and Lily pounced on their respective targets which quickly escalated into a fist fight. The fight got mixed up with each other punching the other randomly. This fight now got other members, seated nearby, involved as well. This small quarrel now became into a full blown guild war.

Lisanna and Erica could only sweatdrop at the current situation. On another table was seated an old man, Makarov, who could only cry at the destruction being caused by the ongoing fight.

"It's like this, when she's here too" said Lisanna.

"Who?" asked Erica.

"Erza Scarlet" replied Lisanna, looking at Mira.

'Why does this happen to me?' whined makarov internally, "More paper work!" exclaimed Makarov burying his face into his arm.

An familiar idea came to his mind, "Lets party today in the name of new family members!" shouted Makarov, grabbing the attention of all the guild members. The guild members quickly dispersed and got their drinks expecting what was going to happen next.

"Cheers to our new members" shouted everyone in the guild, tapping the drink glasses with each other.

Natsu and Lily now seated near mother were extremely happy at the new family they had joined. Erica also shared their opinion and was extremely happy about the decision of joining fairy tail. Natsu and Lily both had already mingled well with the guild and she too felt a sense of belonging as soon as she saw Natsu and Lily opening up to the guild. She had finally found a place where the three truly belonged.

'I think I'm fulfilling your promise right, Igneel?' thought Erica to herself looking at the son and daughter she now had. A tear fell from her eye unknowingly. She quickly wiped it off and joined in on the fun.

* * *

 **A/N: The chap's done. It might seem like a filler, but I thought that the pink trio joining fairy tail just like that would be kinda boring, and so the extra part. Erza, Laxus are yet to be featured. That's all, bye for now...**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Another chapter coming right up... Sorry for the update delay, as I had other stuff to attend to. Anyways, enjoy guys...**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own Fairy Tail.**

 **Chapter Four: The adventure continues**

* * *

While everyone was partying and enjoying, including the pink trio who had just joined, a blonde kid, wearing something that looked like headphones, slightly older than most of the kids there, was watching them from the floor above. He had an indifferent reaction to the merrying.

"Tch. Morons!" he whispered to himself and just disappeared from the scene.

Noticing him from the corner of the eye Natsu asked to no one "Who is that?".

"Oh, that's the guild master's grandson, Laxus." was Lisanna's reply.

"Why won't he come down and enjoy with us?" asked Lily.

"He's a dick. So don't mind him!" Cana joined in the conversation.

"Why is he up there?" asked Natsu "And... why aren't any of you going up there to get him?".

"We can't go up there. Guild's rules!" said Lisanna.

"Its for the S-Class wizards. They are the strongest mages of the guild" said Gray who too joined in the "interesting" conversation.

"Oh... so coool" said Natsu while beaming.

"Is he the only S-Class mage?" asked Lily.

"No, dumbass. The master is also an S-Class mage, then there's Gildarts and her." said Mira with last part coming out with a little venom.

"And who is that?" asked Lily who now became interested in the female S-Class mage, ignoring Mira, pissing her off just a bit.

"She's tha-" Mira was cut off by the sound of the opening guild-hall doors.

"We're back!" said two girls as they walked into the guild and noticed everyone partying.

"What's going on?" asked one of the girls.

Lisanna jumped up and ran upto the two girls followed by Mira, Natsu and Lily. Erica sat on one of the tables.

"Welcome back, Erza... Levy!" said Lisanna "We've got new members!".

"Oh, now I see why the partying!" said the older looking girl with an eye-patch.

"These two here are Natsu and Lily" Lisanna said to Erza and Levy pointing to Natsu and Lily.

"And these two here are Erza and Levy" she continued pointing to a red-haired girl and a shorter blue-haired girl respectively.

"Hello, I'm Natsu Dragneel, nice to you!" said Natsu.

"And I'm Liliana Dragneel, his sister, pleased to make your acquaintance" said Lily while pointing at Natsu.

"I'm Erza Scarlet, pleased to meet you too" replied the older looking red-haired girl.

"I'm Levy McGarden" said the blue-haired girl.

"And over there is Erica Dragneel, their mom" finished Lisanna pointing to a pink-haired lady.

As the two girls approached the woman, Erza noticed something about the woman. She had a familiar looking figure in her life somewhere. 'But where?' thought Erza. The two then just then went to the table and introduced themselves. After introducing themselves, Erza finally had finished figuring out who the person was.

"Miss Linette...?" asked Erza involuntarily.

Erica froze at that address towards her and looked at Erza quizzically. "How do you know that name?" asked Erica. She was referred so when she was a nurse, in the town hospital working with with her husband, in the village. She had almost forgotten that way of addressing.

"You were the town nurse in that village, right?" asked Erza in a hopeful manner.

"Y-Yes, but how do you know that?" asked Erica. Then it struck her that her village her few orphan kids who used to play around the hospital often.

"Are you one of those kids, who played near the hospital?" asked Erica.

"Yes, the five of us played together there!" replied Erza.

"You're one of those five kids! Why this is a miracle! Natsu, Lily come here quick!" said Erica in an ecstatic tone.

"What is it, mom?" asked Natsu.

"Natsu, remember the kids I used to talk about all the time, one of them is here!" replied Erica.

"Oooh... That's awesome!" Natsu and Lily exclaimed in unison.

Erza was overjoyed to know that a person from her village was alive and well and she had a meeting with the person. The person even joined her present family.

"So what happened to the others?" asked Erica.

"They're still at the that tower." said Erza in a sad tone.

"Oh... don't worry we'll save them" said Erica.

"So, h-how did you survive?" asked Erza remembering the raid of the village.

"The answer's here" replied Erica placing a hand on Natsu's head.

"I never knew you had a son and a daughter" said Erza in an astonished tone.

"I never knew myself" said Erica as she drifted away to her dreamland of kids.

'Uhh..uh...' Natsu, Lily sweatdropped.

Natsu then described the whole story and their journey upto joining Fairy Tail. All the while, observing the varied reactions from the two girls. He too was very happy looking at his mom getting happy for another chance meeting.

"So, you lived with a dragon?" asked Erza and Levy with amazed looks on their faces.

"Yeah, it was the most majestic thing I had ever seen" said Erica giving out a chuckle.

"So what magic do you use Miss Linette?" asked Erza.

"Oh, Erica is fine, and I use wind and healing magic!" replied Erica "Why do have this eye-patch?" asked Erica softly, knowing there may a reason behind it.

"It... It happened there" said Erza.

Then she described the whole kidnapping and how she and the others had worked in building a strange tower. And while retaliating they had mistreated the kids which resulted in her losing her eye. She then told that she had got herself an artificial eye, with the helpof Porylusica, and that could'nt cry because it was a fake eye .and so she used an eye-patch.

"Oh... just show me" said Erica.

Erza hesistantly took of the eye patch to reveal a normal looking eye albeit slightly dull in its iris colour. She then cast some healing magic and it stung Erza's eye. The pain was so acute that her eye watered. Then Erza realized, from the blurry image, that both her eyes now had teared up.

"Thank you, Miss Erica" said Erza hugging Erica.

Noticing the moment going on, Makarov announced another party. The day ended with whole guild partying till night. Then everyone said their goodbyes and left for their homes.

Erica, Natsu and Lily were elated with their decision of joining of the guild. They had already felt that they are a part of the guild. And this would only increase with time.

* * *

 **The Next Day...**

* * *

"Good morning, everybody!" greeted the pink trio as they entered the guild and sat on the tables. They waited for the rest of the guild members to arrive as they were kinda early. Then greeting everybody and observing the activities of the guild mates, they realized that all of them took a paper from a board. The board read "Request Board".

"So you up for a request?" asked Lisanna, which snapped the trio out of their gaze.

"Oh we gotta pick a request right!" said Erica with a goofy smile and wlaked up to the board 'What should we pick?'

"Ah... this looks good" said Lily as she picked up a request.

The request paper had a peculiar reward money for a request not worth it. It was retrieving a letter. The request just read about task and no other details were specified. Still new to the system of requests, the pink trio took off to do the request.

"That much money sounds like the letter is stolen or something" said Erica, getting a nod from the two kids.

"Well its our first request so we better give it our all" said Natsu while grinning.

Then they arrived at the person's place, who put the request, to get details. They saw that the person was wealthy looking at the property he owned. They knocked at the door and were recieved by a maid, who then let them in when they showed her the request paper. The person who approached them was a middle-aged man.

"Hello, I'm John Abeers, I was the one who put up the request" said the man.

"So where do we have to get this letter from?" asked Lily.

"It's... it's in a dark guild, north of the town. The name is Death's Door, you have to get back my letter from there. It is really important to me!" said the man in a shaking tone.

"So I take it this dark guild has evil mages in it and stole your letter for some reason?" said Erica.

"Rightly put. I want the letter in one piece, not even a scratch" said the man sternly.

"Okay. We'll get it for you!" said Natsu.

With that the trio left and had reached the place told to them. They saw, from a distance, the board of the run-down building which read 'Death's Door' smeared in blood.

"This place gives me the creeps. We probably have to fight our way through" said Erica in a serious tone, signaling the two kids to up their guard. Then they slowly approached the building and had noticed that only five people were there guarding something that looked like a sealed letter tube.

"Let's go" said Natsu as he jumped on the closest one to them, followed by Lily who did the same.

"Ackkk!" came the dark mage's cry of pain as he was hit by a flaming fist behind his head. He was instantly knocked out.

Hearing this the rest four got alerted and the one being attacked by Lily almost dodged the attack.

"Get them" cried the one at the last who looked like the boss of the gang.

"Natsu, Lily, these people are just like those from our village" shouted Erica who attacked a nearby dark mage with wind magic.

"So, no holding back I guess" said Lily.

"Time for a beatdown" exclaimed Natsu.

After fighting for a little time, they had subjugated all the dark mages. They tied the unconscious mages and grabbed the letter container. Natsu had hurt his cheek in the excitement of the battle. But he just shrugged it off.

"Oh, this look so high-class!" said Erica as she looked at the tube.

"Let's read what's inside" said Natsu.

"No, Natsu. I told you no reading others personal stuff" Erica corrected Natsu, who just pouted cutely.

"Okay fine, let's give the letter back" said Natsu in a displeased tone.

They returned to the mansion and handed the letter to him. He thanked them profusely.

"Thank you so much. My life depends on this letter" said the man while shaking.

"What's so important about the letter?" asked Lily.

"This letter is the testimony of my achievements as a minister of this country" said the man.

"Oh. But then why did those guys steal this?" asked Natsu.

"It's because I was being I assigned this town for governance, and they wanted to take advantage of that" said the man.

"And you let them, steal it from you? How can you be so careless?" commented Erica.

The man could just manage a sheepish smile. "But, thank you so much again" said John.

"Next time be careful" said Erica as she collected the reward, a hefty sum, and left for the guild, the two kids following behind.

'Oh boy, the city sure is in great hands' sweatdropped Erica.

Arriving at the guild, the three were greeted by the usual noisy guild, wait... usual already? They walked upto the bar and ordered water and slumped on the counter.

"That was so tiring!" said Natsu and Lily.

"What was?" asked Mira.

"Beating up the bad guys" replied the both.

"Hah, you're so weak, that you you got exhausted by just beating them up?" said Mira with a smug look on her face.

"Haa? What was that?" Lily shot back, Natsu just kept quite.

Natsu then got up and turned around, the mark on his cheek visible to the guild members. Looking at this Gray made an entry into the scene.

"Looks like pinky got his ass handed to him" said Gray, which ticked Natsu off.

"Oi, I didn't even get the hurt because of those people, I just bumped into a wall" replied Natsu with an embarrassed look on his face.

"Sure!" said Gray with a I-know-it-all look on his face, which pissed Natsu off.

"Hey, droopy eyes I'll prove it to ya" countered Natsu, which pissed Gray off this time.

"You looking for a fight, squinty eyes?" said Gray.

"Sure, I'll take you on, pervert" said Natsu as he crashed into Gray with a fist cocked back.

Elsewhere in the guild another verbal exchange turned into a fist fight. It was only a matter of time when the other members got involved. As the raging tornado, of randomly flying fists, tables, chairs and guild members, increased in size it engulfed every other member of the guild until it was broken apart by an annoyed Erica who blew everyone away with a strong wind.

"Will you guys simmer down? I am trying to rest over here" she said with a deadly glare directed towards them.

"Uwah! Scary!" said everyone as they calmed down and returned the guild to its former self.

Suddenly the guild doors burst into small cubes and there stood a man with a droopy look on his face. The sound of the door collapsing caused Erica to look up the source.

"Master I'm back!" said the man.

"So, back are you? How was the quest, Gildarts?" said Makarov as he came out of his room on the second floor.

"Oh, new members I see" said Gildarts, finding three new faces in the guild.

"Hello, nice to meet you" said the three as they approached the man.

"Hey, I'm Gildarts Clive, good to have you in fairy tail" said Gildarts.

The three introduced themselves and got to know each other and exchanged other talks. Then, another party was thrown to welcome Gildarts, who apperently only comes to the guild once in a few years as he did very high level quests.

The day ended with party member sall sprawled on the floor, passed out due to the booze. The pink haired family took their leave, went home and rested. The next day they were greeted by the same members, who had passed out, still sleeping peacefully with occasional snoring sounds here and there. They did notice Laxus this time only to be greeted another scorn and a prideful goodbye as he left the guild premises.

"Man, what a jerk!" said Lily accompanied by a nod from Natsu and strangely Erica.

"Guys, rise and shine! It's morning already" shouted Erica, looking at the helpless figures of the guild members still affected by the booze.

"Morning already, that's such a pain" said Macao as he groggily woke up. The other members followed his lead and finally all were up and awake.

Gray and the Strauss family had just entered the guild. Followed by all the girls from Fairy Hills. Strangely all of them were very tired as well. 'Oh, looks like their partying went a tad bit overboard!' thought Erica as she noticed all the sleepy faces.

"Hey Lily, look... droopy eyes really has droopy eyes!" said Natsu while laughing madly as he looked at the half-naked Gray who perked up to the comment.

"Natsu, look... a red dumb face and a white idiot face" said Lily as she pointed at the two girls she was refering to, all the while giggling violently herself.

The people targeted with the insult were quick to react to the statements, quickly snapping out of their lazy states, by pouncing on the intended target. But that didn't happen as their targets seemed to move fater than them for some reason. They then realized that their sleepiness was causing them to slow down.

They resorted to magic b'coz... why the hell not? They tried to hit their target only to miss. They tried and tried but could'nt do it. All the while, the victims of the crossfire were forcefully awakened from their sleepiness which pissed them to no end.

"Get the two brats" said the awakened guild members with a tick mark on their foreheads. They caught the people responsible for the destruction of their peaceful time, namely Natsu and Lily.

"No, no, no, no" said Natsu and Lily. As they were caught, they retaliated, in vain, to get out their holds.

Then they recieved the punishment for their apperant 'crimes'. Though, they didn't give in and fought back. This turned the 'judgement time' into another all-out guild war, with magic flying form one corner to another. The fight was interrupted midway by an annoyed Gildarts who created a hole in the center of the guild and trapped everyone in it. This pretty much was the routine in the guild always.

* * *

 **A few days later...**

* * *

Natsu and Lily both enjoyed Gildarts' company while he was at the guild. The day had come when Gildarts was finally going to leave for another hundred year quest. The strange part about this was that Gildarts had stayed the longest of any his stays in fairy tail. The guild members thought the two kids had an effect on Gildarts, which was true.

Gildarts got the request and left, saying his goodbyes.

"This is so boring!" said Natsu, slumped at a table in the guild. 'I think I should do a request... ?' thought Natsu, snot sure if his boredom would be quenched.

'Okay, let's just go outside' Natsu thought to himself as he left the guild. Noticing this both Lily and Lisanna followed him.

"Where are you going?" asked Lisanna.

"Nowhere in particular" replied Natsu.

While they were walking Natsu picked up a scent of a fruit. It smelled delicious and fresh.

"Hey, I smell fruit over there. And really good ones" said Natsu as he pointed to a forest like area.

The three kids ran over to the tree Natsu had picked in excitement. They saw the tree was quite high and had many fruit hanging from it.

"Lily, help me out here!" said Natsu as he looked up an aimed at a fruit. He then threw a stone, with the help of his fire as boosters, which hit its target and brought down a fruit.

He gave the fruit to Lisanna and got another one for himself. He saw that Lily was also done with her side. They looked at the fruit one more time. It was bright red in color and had a fresh citrus fragrance. It looked so inviting that they all took a large bite out of it.

The thing they tasted was the worst in their life. The three frantically ran around in the sheer amount of shock at the thing they experienced. They then pucked their guts out until they were satisfied that the taste was gone.

"That was the nastiest thing I've ever tasted!" said Lily as she cleaned her mouth.

Natsu, who unfortunately could'nt get the horrible taste out of his mouth started to breath fire out in order to remove the bad taste. Until he was done, he had pucked almost five times.

Pissed, he kicked a nearby tree. "Damn fruit, looks good, tastes shit!" growled Natsu. Before he could kick again, a thing came crashing down on to his head.

"Ow, what's that thing that fell down" as he got up and looked at the thing. "Ooooh, an egg. A dragon's egg! Lily, Lisanna look!" Natsu called out, overjoyed at the discovery.

"Wow!" said the two girls who came to spot and looked at the egg. It was big, almost as tall as Natsu, and had strange intricate patterns which somewhat resembled a dragon.

"Let's hatch it" said Lily. She then remembered the things a mother bird does to hatch an egg.

"We need a straw nest, and we need to keep the egg warm" said Lily.

Both Natsu and Lily built a small hut made of straw and put some more of it inside the hut. Then they rested the egg on the grass. They made the hut close to Natsu's home, just for safety. The day came to an end with all the three taking turns to keep the egg warm. They enjoyed each others company and playing the role of a parent.

The three were so exhausted that they dozed off next to the egg. The next day the three got up because of a strange noise. The noise that woke them sounded like knocking sound. They realized the sound and rushed to get up and saw the egg shaking. Overjoyed they took the egg and rushed to the egg, though very carefully.

Upon arriving at the guild, they kicked open the doors and rushed inside. Dodging the other questions thrown at them they quickly positioned the egg at the center of the guild.

"Everyone, you have to see this!" said the three in a loud tone. "It's an egg. And its hatching".

"Oh, what a rare sight!" said Makarov as he came up to the egg and looked at it amazement.

Everyone gathered around the egg and watched it closely. It shook and made a knocking noise.

"It's a dragon's egg you know." said Natsu. "It will hatch into a baby dragon".

"It doesn't look like a dragon's egg to me" said Gray trying to piss Natsu off, which didn't work as Natsu was too engrossed with the egg hatching.

Then suddenly the egg started cracking. Everyone's attention was drawn to it. It cracked a little more and then a little more. When it was cracked halfway through the egg glowed a bright light and from it emerged a cat, a blue one at that. It was small and had wings. It then softly landed on Natsu's head with a peaceful look on its face.

"Aye!" came the voice of the cat. Hearing this the entire guild burst into a joyous mood.

Looking at the mood change the guild had undergone Natsu decided on a name.

"Happy!" said Natsu to the cat. To which the cat replied "Aye!" while raising its small paw into the air.

This caused another roar of laughter in the guild and the members were overjoyed at the addition of a new member to their already big happy family.

* * *

 **A/N: The chapter's done. Well this may have been boring but I'll try to improvise on this. There is a lot of stuff I've planned for the upcoming chapters so stay tuned. Until then bye guys...**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, my older laptop was in shambles and it took a lot of time for me get a new one. But now I am all set and ready. So here's the fifth chapter. I'll be altering the timeline a bit so it may seem odd or non-canon or strange or whatever. But nevertheless, enjoy...**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own Fairy Tail.**

 **Chapter Five: A change of pace.**

* * *

 **Time skip: Two years**

It was a clichéd bright morning, with the clichéd birds chirping the clichéd song. The scene was also clichéd. The clichéd sunlight passing through the windows and lighting up an unusual looking house. It had grown in size since the last time a new family member had joined. Overall the morning was a very standard and clichéd.

There sat a pink haired kid at the table in the said home, waiting for breakfast. "Man, could this day get any more clichéd!" said Natsu in an annoyed tone. "This day is so boring!".

"Let's go fishing Natsu" said a blue cat sitting on top of Natsu's head with its mouth-watering while saying 'fish'. "We'll catch some big ones today!".

"Haven't we been doing than since morning?" asked Natsu. "This day just keeps getting more and more boring!".

"Natsu why don't you go and train with Lily?" suggested Erica, preparing food from the kitchen. "But that's after breakfast okay!".

"Okay I'll go ask her" said Natsu.

He then ran to Lily's room and knocked on the door. After getting no response he knocked again. No response again. So he opened the door with lots of care so as to not disturb Lily. But what he saw was totally unexpected. There stood Lily totally naked, nothing covering her body.

Natsu looking at this instantly turned a bright shade of pink. 'How to behave with a woman' a guide book by 'Evil Erica' was drilled into Natsu when he was a young kid and thus the reaction. Before he could react to the scene Lily called out to him.

"Oh Natsu, what do you want?" asked Lily.

"Uh... uhhh... n-nothing mu-much really" said Natsu with his eye twitching violently. He forgot the task at hand at the sight. He then shakingly raised a hand and pointed at Lily, who gave a questioning look. He couldn't control himself and then turned around and ran out of the room, followed by a puzzled Happy.

"Ohhh, Lily was not wearing clothes" said Happy. "Is that a new fashion?" he asked Natsu. This made Natsu blush even harder. 'You just can't stay quiet Happy?' thought Natsu.

The reaction displayed by a flustered Natsu was enough for Lily to understand what happened as she realized her mistake. Then her face turned a bright shade of pink. She slammed the oor shut and got ready.

A few minutes later she came out with her face still pink. She noticed Natsu was also still flustered by the sudden exposure. She couldn't meet eyes with Natsu. She then proceeded to eat breakfast with peace. Natsu followed the directive and sat on the table. Happy was still too small to understand the situation, too bad. Maybe?

Erica arrived with the food and served and the three started eating. The kids sat at their respective chairs and Happy sat on the table. There was an awkward silence for a few moments, until Erica decided to break the ice.

"So Natsu are you going to train with Lily?" asked Erica.

"Ahhh! What? I didn't see anything!" came Natsu's reply whose train of thought had still not abandoned the topic of the incident.

"About that! hehehe" said Natsu with a sheepish grin as he looked at Lily. His face turned bright again and eh averted his gaze somewhere else. Lily also did the same.

"Natsu, why were so scared when Lily was naked?" asked Happy in an innocent tone, not realizing the consequences of his actions.

"NATSU!" Erica's smiling face backed by a furious killing intent which was the only thing Natsu could see. But before he could confess his non-existent crimes Lily spoke up.

"Uh... that was my fault. Don't scold him!" defended Lily. Erica's gaze instantly changed back to a normal smile, relieving Natsu of a huge pressure.

"That's fine then" said Erica. "So Natsu, you train with Lily, and Happy stay with Natsu, while I finish up the rest of the chores and then we'll head to the guild, okay?".

"Aye" came the reply of Natsu and Happy in unison. Then the people present there performed their assigned tasks.

After a while Natsu and Lily returned after their training, thoroughly beat up. They took a bath each and got ready. They assembled outside the house and locked the door.

"Let's go!" said Erica as she signaled the three to follow. They merrily and steadily walked around town. They were greeted by many people as they walked through the streets.

The new thing about this was their reputation as mages had skyrocketed after they joined Fairy Tail. They had done a load of requests from finding a cat to capturing evil mages to permanently closing dark guilds. They now were definitely deserving of the respect after the good deeds done. They had become much more experienced with choosing which request to do, after their embarrassing revelation of their first request mistake.

Then they arrived at the guild. When they opened the doors, Erica's face met with a jug that was sent flying towards them. Natsu, Lily and Happy stood there dumbfounded at what had just happened. Then they saw a different version of Erica standing next to them.

"Kids turn around please; I would like to tach these gentlemen a little something about manners!" said Erica with anger oozing out with her speech.

'Another great start for another great day' thought the three simultaneously, as though they were communicating telepathically. Then they walked in after Erica had finished wreaking havoc in the guild.

This was something Erica had developed while being in the guild with the rowdy members around all the time. She had learnt that the members understood a language called 'pain' very well if the situation was going south.

When all was said and done, the guild had calmed down and everybody had resumed their previous activities, which is idling on the tables or drinking.

"Lily, so what mission are you going to do today?" asked Erza who was not agitated for once while talking to her 'arch enemy'.

"Let's see" replied Lily as she walked to the stairs and started climbing them. "An S-Class request should be the best now I suppose...".

In the past two years' S-Class exams two people were promoted to the S-Class mage level. Lily and Mira were the lucky ones to pass the exams. The Strauss family was very happy for Mira and the same was the case with the Dragneel family. Natsu on the other hand had other feelings as well. He was full of pride, with a hint of jealousy, over his sister's achievement and was also burning with newfound enthusiasm for becoming an S-Class mage.

"Oh, an S-Class request I see, shall I come too" said Erza in a very sweet tone and puppy dog eyes. This caused Lily to give a surprised and disgusted look.

"Ok let's do it together" said Lily in a monotone voice. She then went up and started looking for a suitable S-Class quest while Erza just stayed down and talked to Erica. "Happy you're coming with me!".

"Aye" said the flying cat as he went towards Lily and sat on her head.

"This day is so boring; I wish Gildarts was here!" said Natsu as he rested his head on the table.

As soon as he completed saying that the city sounded an alarm. This was a new Gildarts-proof system developed by the city of magnolia for the said person's troublesome crash magic.

"Think of the devil and the devil arrives!" said the members of Fairy Tail in unison.

"Awesome, Gildarts is here!" said Natsu enthusiastically. 'Now's my chance!' he thought cooking up a plan.

Gildarts had visited the guild once more during the two years, just for the sake of seeing Natsu and Lily. He even visited their house during his visit.

Natsu's new goal was to become an S-Class mage as powerful as Gildarts. So he promised himself to train and become strong like Gildarts.

As soon as Gildarts came into the guild, again utterly destroying the guild doors, Natsu threw a punch at Gildarts.

"Whoa there!" said Gildarts as he caught the punch.

"Fight me, Gildarts!" said Natsu in a confident voice as he retreated back into a fighting stance.

"Fine I'll be your guinea pig for now, but entertain me" said Gildarts with a stern voice. The tone also showed a hint of expectation.

Then the two of them went outside the guild and reached a spot free from trees and other obstructions, followed by the guild who wanted to watch a fight, more like a one-sided beat down of a certain someone rather than a fight. Gray was the most interested with this 'fight'.

Natsu showed a sign to Gildarts who understood the indication. He then got into a fighting stance with his eyes closed. Then he shot them open and his face turned dead serious with a confident grin. Most of the people thought it was the same face Natsu made during the guild brawls, but they didn't expect the following...

Natsu then ran towards Gildarts with his fist slowly cocking backwards as he moved closer. He then jumped when he was a few feet away with a punch readied and threw the punch. Gildarts expecting the punch brought an arm forward to block, but the punch didn't connect. He then saw that the Natsu who was supposed to punch him was an after-image of the original. Seeing this Gildarts brought his mental guard up. He then noticed a movement and moved his head sideways to dodge a punch which came from behind him.

Seeing this the guild members were amazed. Natsu then just landed away from Gildarts. He then charged again with the same pattern. He then actually punched this time, but it was blocked. Then Natsu used the other free arm to deliver a round-house punch which was also blocked. Gildarts proceeded to push away Natsu, who just made another soft landing. Then Natsu charged again with the same punch, which was parried this time. Natsu just used the momentum of the parry to turn around and elbow Gildarts who just held the elbow and flung Natsu above him.

Natsu, in mid-air half-way though the swing, brought his foot down to kick but Gildarts just released Natsu and ducked the kick. Gildarts then delivered a soft horse-shoe kick to thrust Natsu away from him. Natsu then proceeded to attack again. He then decided to go with a kick and did the same. He tried to do a flying kick which was stopped mid-way. Gildarts then pushed the kick sideways. Using the momentum of the spin, Natsu kicked Gildarts, who dodged it by stepping back. While in the spin Natsu also tried to punch but his arm was too short to reach so his swung his arm and landed and skid to a stop.

"Is that all you've got, kid?" taunted Gildarts, who had a similar grin as Natsu.

"Nah, the fight's just getting started!" replied Natsu now grinning even wider.

"Time for magic!" Natsu then lit his hands on fire. " **Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!** " He then proceeded to punch Gildarts who just dodged the punch this time. Then another punch was thrown which was also dodged. Then a series punches were launched at Gildarts, who just dodged, blocked or parried them.

Then Natsu just ran towards Gildarts with his flaming hands. He then instead of punching just slid under Gildarts' legs and was on the other side when he threw a ball of fire " **Fire Dragon's Brilliant flame!** ". Gildarts just cut the magic into small pieces with his magic and the flames dissipated with a little smoke.

"That won't work!" informed Gildarts.

Natsu bursting through the flames punched Gildarts square in the face. Though it was actually Gildarts' hand holding Natsu flaming hand just an inch away from his face, sweat sliding down his face from the heat of the flames. Gildarts then threw Natsu upwards into the sky. Natsu readied another spell at his disposal. Using the fall's speed to his advantage he brought down his flaming foot down, which was stopped mid-way. But the force of the attack was so strong that it created a small shockwave while also burying Gildarts' feet into the ground a bit.

Gildarts had moved out of the crater created by the attack and was ready for more. Deciding on a different move this time he simply ran towards Gildarts. He increased his speed by flaming himself up, shouting out " **Fire Dragon's Sword horn** " and head butted Gildarts. Upon instinct he caught Natsu's head completely forgetting the flaming part.

"Yahh! Hot! hot! hot! hot! hot!" cried Gildarts flailing his arms in the air and blowing on them after redirecting Natsu sideways, away from him.

Skidding to a stop, Natsu decided to use his best move. He stood there charging up his flames. He then inhaled the air around him with the flames following behind, his cheeks puffing up. " **Fire Dragon's Roar!** " He then opened his mouth and let out an inferno of flames which raged on through the air melting the ground beneath it in the direction of Gildarts.

Seeing the incoming inferno which could spell utter defeat if not countered properly, Gildarts was satisfied and in an appreciative way decided to use his own magic. He brought his arm up and crushed the beam of fire, but didn't control the output of his own power. Not realizing this at the last moment he noticed that the ground beneath Natsu had crumbled up and was falling apart kicking up tons of smoke.

"Ahhh…" was the only thing that was heard when Natsu had fallen into the pit that was mistakenly created. Seeing this Gildarts gave a sheepish grin to the witnessing guild members, who could only laugh or show pity for his actions.

Expecting Natsu to be passed out and thoroughly beaten, Gray immediately ran to the pit and peeped into it followed by the others.

"Hey Gildarts, what's the big id-" said Natsu, when suddenly his head met with Gray's head and knocked him over.

"Oww, oi flaming idiot what the hell are you doing?" asked Gray in an annoyed tone while scratching his head.

"I could ask you the same thing, ice bastard!" shot back Natsu in an equally annoyed tone doing the same thing as Gray.

As soon as Natsu was visible from the smoke, that is butting heads with Gray in a heated argument, everyone surrounded him and congratulated him. Because this was the first time in the history of Fairy Tail that anyone has ever made Gildarts move in a sparring match. And not just a little but a whole lot than just standing and evading attacks.

"Is that so? I really don't think Gildarts is that difficult to move!" said Natsu shocking the guild members.

They were shocked by Natsu's words but then after recalling the fight it became less surprising. Gray who was thinking about this, couldn't help but accept the fact that Natsu was strong, really strong and he had to be surpassed. It made him sick, but he had to accept the fact that Natsu was currently the stronger of the two.

But it was different with Natsu. He knew a totally different perspective of the fight. While he felt happy that he had done something that not one in the guild has ever managed to, it was out of sheer luck, he also knew that Gildarts was only playing with him. He had actually let his guard down thinking that Natsu wasn't much of a challenge which caused in some different results.

Then when everyone had calmed down and returned to the guild and resumed their activities the talk for the S-Class quest resumed. Lily was excited and annoyed at the same time, annoyed because Erza is her partner for the mission. She was fully aware that they couldn't keep up their rivalry during their mission but she also couldn't fathom the fact that she partnered up with Erza.

Finally giving up on the idea of not letting Erza come with her, reason Erza's pleading eyes, Lily reluctantly agreed to the mission. They had started preparing for the mission. After a half an hour they were ready.

"I'll be back in a jiffy!" said Lily waving to everyone. "Let's go Happy, Erza".

"I wanna go on an S-Class mission too" muttered Natsu.

"You will when you become an S-Class mage" said Erica with a reassuring tone. "And that's not going to take too long".

"Fine… whatever!" pouted Natsu, causing Erica and the surrounding members to give out a chuckle.

They all went back to their routines. Natsu slumped on a table; Erica chatting with Bisca; Macao and Wakaba drinking with Cana, who had developed a habit of drinking; Elfman preaching about how to be manly; Lisanna at the bar and a loud thumping sound. Wait… a thumping sound that's not usual! The cause of that sound was an angered Mira stomping across the guild, ranting about how she didn't even go on a single S-Class mission.

"What's troubling you Mira?" asked Erica.

"I haven't gone on a single S-Class mission even though I am an S-Class mage!" said Mira, frustrated.

"So you could just go and get an S-Class mission…" replied Erica. "No one's stopping you".

Hearing the response Erica gave, Mira's face went blank.

"Huh?!" was all Mira could manage as a reply.

"Don't tell me you didn't think of that!" sighed Erica, unable to believe the girl.

Mira quietly climbed up the stairs and went to get a mission flyer. She noticed a flyer stating "APPREHENTION OF BEAST; HIGH CLASS MAGES REQUIRED!". "Oh! A perfect job and Elfman gets a new beast soul too!" thought Mira. She then excitedly ran down and showed the flyer to Erica.

"This is the S-Class mission I'm going on with my siblings" said Mira with a glint in her eyes.

"Oh! Can you show me the request?!" said Erica excited as well.

Looking at the request she got an eerie feeling. She couldn't tell what the feeling was at first. The feeling was so small that she could shrug it off but also strong enough to be bothered by it in the first place. Then she continued reading the request which said something about monster apprehension. The note had a big red 'urgent' written, in bold letters, at the bottom of the page.

"Monster apprehension request?" said Erica with a puzzled look.

"Yes! It's the easiest up there and has an additional bonus to it" said Mira pointing at the S-Class request board.

"Bonus? But nothing is listed here?" asked Erica, her curiosity piqued.

"It's the beast soul for Elfman!" said Mira.

"Oh I see. That's very good then" replied Erica. "So when are you leaving then? It says urgent here!".

"Oh we'll be leaving in an hour or so!" replied Mira as she ran off to where Lisanna and Elfman were, showing them the request flyer. Then they left the guild hall to prepare for the mission.

"Natsu come here!" called out Erica. Said person came to the indicated location.

"What mom?" asked Natsu.

"You wanted to go on an S-Class mission right…" said Erica. "Now's your chance!"

"Oh, that's awesome, how do I go and with whom?" said Natsu extremely elated about the news given by his mother.

"You'll be going with the Strauss siblings" said Erica with a smiling face.

"Oh. Is Lisanna coming? …and Elfman?" asked Natsu. "...and of course, Mira!" continued Natsu with a displeased tone.

"Yes Lisanna and the other two are coming!" said Erica, fully understanding the hint unknowingly given by Natsu.

"Cool then!" said Natsu as he too ran off to get his things ready. There was a slight blush on Natsu's face.

A few minutes later the Strauss siblings arrived fully ready to accept the mission. As they approached the Makarov to inform him they were stopped by Erica.

"There's another person coming with you three" said Erica with a smile on her face.

* * *

 **A/N: That's it for this chapter. I don't have much to say, so… see ya in the next chapter… so until then bye bye…**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: This is going get better from here and a little different too… Onwards to the next chapter…**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own Fairy Tail.**

 **Chapter 6: Unexpected loss.**

* * *

The three kids looked at Erica with question marks flying over their heads. Then came Natsu rushing in with a backpack fully loaded for travel. Their doubts were instantly cleared.

"Here he is!" said Erica pointing towards Natsu. Said person gave a charismatic grin in return.

"But why the addition?" asked Mira.

"Coz Natsu also wanted to go on an S-Class mission!" said Erica with a, not-so-easily-noticeable sinister, smile. "And you might want help as this is your first S-Class monster apprehension mission".

The three just agreed with Lisanna being the most excited about the addition of another team member. Both Mira and Erica were pleased with the development but didn't show it outside so as not spoil the fun. Then the four took the flyer and registered for the quest and took off to complete it.

Makarov turned to look at Erica and asked her why she added Natsu to an already capable team of mages. She replied as a mother's intuition. But she knew the feeling she had was not a good one and to avoid it from bothering her, she sent Natsu. Just to make sure that the three returned safe and sound. She didn't worry about Natsu as she knew her son was fully capable of surviving in the wilderness all alone.

During the travel Mira and Natsu were the only ones engaged in a one-sided conversation. The other two just kept quiet knowing the outcome of the 'conversation'. They just watched from the side-lines, actually more like enjoyed it.

"Where is this request flyer coming from?" Natsu asked to Mira. He got a reply "A town near Magnolia".

"How far is it from here?" asked Natsu again. To which the reply was a small and a little less enthusiastic "Pretty close".

"How long will it take to get there?" said Natsu again. "It won't take much longer" was the less enthusiastic and slightly annoyed answer.

"What kind of monster are we going to fight?" said Natsu. "It's the king of monsters!" said Mira with annoyance increasing with every word.

"What is the reward money?" Natsu fired another question at Mira.

"WE'LL GET TO KNOW THAT WHEN WE GET THERE. SO QUIT YOUR QUESTIONING!" snapped Mira.

"Fine. Don't have to yell at me!" said Natsu in a low and weak voice.

"What was that?" asked Mira with venom pouring out in her voice.

"Nothing really" said Natsu with a monotone voice. But internally he was frightened, just a little bit though. 'Why do these girls have to be so dominant? I'll never understand them' thought Natsu looking at the sky.

"We've arrived" said Lisanna snapping the two conversing people to look at the indicated direction.

The town was half broken apart. Some houses had wooden boards attached to them indicating that they were under repair. Some of the roads had small craters in them showing that the town was definitely under need of mages and quick. Their wished were granted for the four had arrived. The four excited about the mission went into the town. As they walked through the town they saw very scarce population and also saw that most people avoided contact with the four. Luckily they found a person and enquired about the town mayor and went to his house.

Upon reaching they showed the request flyer to the mayor, who gave a very ecstatic look which also brought smiles to the fours' faces.

"So you four kids are going to kill the beast?" asked the mayor with doubt evident in his voice.

"We are more than capable of stopping this beast" said Elfman with confidence.

Relieved, the mayor described the whole incident when the beast had come into the village causing massive destruction. He told that the beast had come only twice and it had already destroyed half the town over a span of five days.

"You have to kill this monster. We can't suffer any more damage to the town!" said the mayor in a pleading tone and attempted puppy dog eyes.

The four agreed to helping the town to get rid of the beast all the while giving a disgusted look. The puppy dog eyes didn't look good, at all. After all an old geezer should behave like wise man with a little senile nature to show signs of aging. Not this kind of a you-know-what.

They cleared their minds of the old man's face, which was stuck to the memory in their brains like leech. Then the old man pointed that the beast, even though a monster, was quite intelligent. It had a den in the forest nearby and only hunted animals for food but also loved rampaging and destruction.

Gathering all the details they formulated a plan to defeat the beast. The plan was simple. Lisanna would be the bait, turning into her rabbit form and luring the beast out of his den. Mira would then weaken the beast and then Elfman would absorb the beast's soul and Natsu would do nothing.

"HEY! How come I don't get to do anything!" asked Natsu in a furious tone.

"Shut up idiot. You're back up if anything goes wrong" said Mira in a monotone and extremely unenthusiastic tone which infuriated Natsu even further.

"Hey! What's the big idea keeping me as back up!" retorted Natsu. "I can also help weaken the beast".

"I'm more than enough" replied Mira. "You can just stay put and watch how an S-Class mage fights. Anyways you were backup right from the very beginning".

Not able to argue with the point stated Natsu just kept quiet. "Fine let's get this over with already" said Natsu. "Man… what a bummer!" he muttered.

The four then followed the directions given by the mayor to get to the beast's den. As they approached it they noticed the greenery in the forest with trees laden with fruit all over the place.

"I gotta hand it to the guy. He definitely knows how to pick a den. Reminds me of Igneel a lot!" said Natsu, looking up into the sky with a sad smile.

"Hey Natsu, Igneel is watching from up there and must be happy too" comforted Lisanna.

"Yeah, thanks" replied Natsu. "Okay let's get the mission Apprehend-Beast started".

"Yeah!" was the reply of the other three with him.

Then Lisanna changed into her rabbit form. Looking at this Natsu couldn't avert his gaze at how cute and fluffy Lisanna was. He kept looking at Lisanna who was also happy at being noticed by Natsu. Both of this happened unconsciously until Mira intervened.

"Ahem! Ahem! Focus Lisanna!" said Mira snapping Lisanna and Natsu out of their trances. Followed by the two blushing madly at others' actions, and then continuing to their assigned tasks that is luring and doing nothing respectively.

"Tch! This is so boring!" said Natsu while waiting, as he watched the three siblings position themselves in their assigned areas of attack.

Lisanna approached the den albeit slightly frightened. She then tried looking inside the den but couldn't as it was too dark. Then she started to move inside very slowly when she was indicated by Mira. As soon as she took one step she placed her foot on a twig which snapped creating a sound which echoed through the den. Then two bright red orbs were visible which sent chills down her spine. Then a small growl was heard and the two orbs started growing in size. Growing… in size… the beast was approaching Lisanna. When she realized this this her mind had gone into overdrive mode.

"KYAAAHH!" screamed Lisanna as she ran out of the den followed by the beast. Natsu was literally rolling on the ground clutching his hurting stomach from all the laughing.

It was a massive beast. It was four times as large as Elfman was, who himself had quite the large body build for his age.

Then Mira, transforming into her Satan-Soul form, slid just under the beast's legs tripping it. The beast fell with a loud thud and created a crater the size and shape of itself. Then Mira flew into the air and charged up an " **Evil Explosion"** spell. It was quite large sphere and required large amount of magic. As the beast was trying to recover from the fall, Mira threw the energy ball at the beast which made contact and exploded. The smoke that had been kicked up cleared to reveal a severely injured beast barely hanging onto dear life by a string's support.

"Elfman, NOW!" signaled Mira, who then changed back into her normal form due low magic reserves.

Elfman came near the beast and put his hands on it and channeled his magic through it. Then he through the magic contract he captured the beast's soul and absorbed it. He instantly transformed into the beast but unfortunately lost control. This was not noticed until he didn't change form even though Mira told him to do so.

Mira realized it too late and was swatted away with great force by the beastified Elfman. Mira, who was not in her Satan form, suffered from some serious injuries. Looking at this both Lisanna and Natsu realized that the situation just turned bad. Natsu came down from his perch on a tree and darted towards the trio, whereas Lisanna, who had returned to her human form, approached Elfman hoping to talk some sense into him, but she didn't know Elfman thought otherwise.

"ELFMAN! Snap out of it! You've hurt Mira so badly! How is this manly in anyway?" Lisanna yelled at Elfman who just raised an arm in response.

As he brought his arm down to attack Lisanna, who just stood there thinking that this would help, Natsu intervened "Just… in… ti-" by pushing Lisanna out of the way, receiving the attack instead.

"Aah!" yelled Lisanna as she was pushed away. As soon as she recovered she saw a sight that almost brought her to tears. There she saw Natsu buried in the ground with the arm of the beast on top of Natsu's body. Mira who had just recovered from her injuries couldn't believe what just happened.

"HAAAH" Natsu pushed the hand of his back, jumped and landed a devastating " **Fire Dragon's Iron Fist** " on Elfman jaw, sending him flying a few meters.

"This is what… happens… when I leave… all the work… to you guys…" said Natsu in between heavy breaths. "What an irresponsible… sister you are, Mira" continued Natsu to which he got no reply.

Then Elfman just got out of the rubble not making any noise or cry of pain or annoyance. This indicated Natsu that Elfman was unconscious and only his body, taken over by the beast, was moving. Then he decided that beating Elfman was the best course of action.

"Time for a beat-down!" said Natsu as he flashed an evil smirk. "I've always wanted to beat the manly Elfman to a pulp".

The beast just stood there. Lisanna noticing Mira in the corner of the eye ran to help her. She helped her stand. Mira then told her to face her towards the two fighting.

"You have to knock him out! Annihilate him!" shouted Mira.

"Was just planning on that! Thanks for the permission though" Natsu replied back without facing the two girls.

Then Natsu lunged forward Elfman with a flaming cocked back and punched him. The punch connected and turned the beast a full round. The beast then tried retaliating by punching Natsu, who just dodged it and slammed a flaming elbow into Elfman's guts. Then not giving Elfman time to recover Natsu slid through Elfman's legs and after reaching the other side he jumped up high and hit Elfman with " **Fire Dragon's Claw** ".

After landing he held his foot with which he had hit Elfman with. What he hit was too hard to damage or he didn't hit the right thing. Then he realized that the body wouldn't feel pain and so it wouldn't move to protect itself thus the full damage return. But before Natsu could get his mind back in the fight a hand came and grabbed his head. Elfman had reacted to the hit to his upper body when Natsu was busy recovering from his foot injury. Holding Natsu's head with bone-crushing grip he slammed it into the ground in front on him with great force, with the addition of the momentum gained from the spinning.

Seeing this both the girls cried out to Natsu, seeing the damage done to his little body. Elfman retreated his hand to reveal a heavy injured and bleeding Natsu. Elfman then started approaching the defenseless girls.

"ELFMAN! SNAP OUT OF IT! NOW YOU'VE HURT NATSU AS WELL!" yelled Lisanna.

"We have to fight. He won't listen to us now" said Mira, as she tried freeing herself from Lisanna's grip and standing on her legs, but in vain.

"Okay Mira, then I'll fight Elfman. You're in no condition to fight" replied Lisanna.

"I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!" roared Natsu furiously as he flew towards Elfman with great speed.

As he was about to punch Elfman, Elfman ducked causing Natsu to miss. Then the next instant Elfman thrashed Natsu with a backhand sending him flying towards the girls.

"INCOMING!" shouted Natsu as came flying towards the girls.

Natsu flew through the air and crashed into the girls who were trying to evade the incoming helpless skid to a stop after a few meters. Natsu recovered the first and helped the girls, who got a good look at Natsu's condition. He was severely thrashed, bruised and bleeding all over his body. They could only gasp looking at Natsu who still had a smirk on his face though it was partly because of anger.

As Natsu was recovering he coughed up a lot of blood. This caused extreme worry to both the girls.

"Natsu you don't have to do this" said Mira. "Elfman is weak enough for Lisanna to handle".

"Yes! Please rest, you are very badly hurt" added Lisanna.

Natsu didn't reply to them and just stood up with his back facing them.

"Okay I didn't want to do this but sorry Elfman" said Natsu as he puffed his cheeks.

Elfman this time took the initiative to attack and charged towards Natsu.

" **Fire Dragon's Roar** " Natsu released his signature move. This was a well prepared one and had a lot of power, necessary in this kind of situation. The raging inferno of flames collided with the charging Elfman who was mere feet away from Natsu.

Natsu didn't stop his attack and continued for about a few seconds more. Assuming the best he cut his attack. The smoke had covered Elfman and didn't reveal his condition. Then Elfman burst out of the flames and slammed his fist into Natsu's gut, who was sent flying.

"NATSU, NO!" yelled Mira and Lisanna together, looking at the flying bloodied figure of Natsu, who had landed near them. Then they heard another loud thud. It was Elfman, he had finally been knocked out. They were relieved to find the task accomplished, but their quickly returned when they saw that Natsu hadn't moved for a while. It was indeed a worry because no matter how injured Natsu was, he would always try to get back up. But he didn't move this time at all.

As they saw that Elfman had returned to himself they quickly ran up to Natsu. Lisanna rested his head on her lap and saw that Natsu hadn't opened his eyes. Tears streamed down her face as well as Mira's face. Then Natsu slowly albeit weakly opened his eyes. They were relieved that Natsu was still alive.

"Natsu! You're… alright!?" asked Lisanna.

"Yeah… I guess" said Natsu softly. "But I can't feel my magic anymore".

That statement shocked the two girls to their very cores. Fresh tears flowed down both their faces. Both of them knew that magic was the life force of a mage. They can't survive without it.

"What are you talking about Natsu? What do you mean can't feel your magic? You're joking right…" said Mira with a hopeful smile all the while tears still flowing down her face.

"Why… would I… joke at a time… like this?" replied Natsu. He breathing was getting more and more erratic by the passing second.

"No, don't say that. Why did you go so far for us?" asked Lisanna. She too was crying.

"I… can't let a… cute little family… in front of me break up… you know!" said Natsu with a weak smile.

"Family you say…? Then what about your family? What will I say to them?" replied Mira. "Tell me, Natsu. How is that fair?".

"It's alright. I suppose I was just a tool to unite them" said Natsu with a sad smile. Natsu started to glow.

"What's happening? Natsu?" asked Mira and Lisanna.

"I wish I had more time but I guess my time is up" said Natsu as his body started to disintegrate into glowing magic particles.

"NOO! Don't say that! You can't go! Stay with me!" said Lisanna. "You can't leave m-us like this!" she continued now crying even more.

"I'm glad I could save the three of you" said Natsu in a soft tone. "Live on for me".

"Idiot! Why are you doing this to us?" said Mira. "I can't live with the fact that you are dying because of us. What am I going to say to Erica and LILY?".

Natsu didn't reply to that. He just gave a smile which made the girls cry even more. Natsu was almost gone when he spoke again.

"I'll be going now… Take care of yourselves" said Natsu. "And one more thing, don't blame Elfman or yourself for this. It was neither of your fault. It was what I did and entirely my fault." With that Natsu withered away into the air as magic dust particles.

"How can you say that?" was all Mira could manage.

Then the two girls finally gave into their feelings and cried. They cried a lot, because they couldn't do anything to save Natsu. It hurt even more when they realized that Natsu had done all of their work for them and left them safe, and out of harm way. That day was the worst day of their life. Then they snapped out of their actions, realizing that crying wasn't going to bring Natsu back, and took the unconscious Elfman to a local doctor to get their injuries dressed up.

Then while they were waiting in the hospital, Elfman had regained consciousness. He called for his sisters, who had extremely sullen faces. Their faces had tear marks running down the cheeks and bags under their eyes. He asked them about their condition and the how the mission and how he ended up in the hospital, completely forgetting Natsu. They didn't reply and didn't even bother looking at him and just had their faces hanging with a distant look on their faces. Then he realized that Natsu was missing and seeing their faces a chill ran down his spine.

He enquired about Natsu expecting something bad but the reply he got was totally unexpected and shocked him.

"He's gone. Natsu's gone, Elfman!" said Mira with her eyes threatening to cry.

"WHAT? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?" asked Elfman, ignoring the 'not-possible' part of thought lingering in the corner of his head.

Then Mira explained the whole incident of how Elfman had lost control when he absorbed the beast's soul and how Natsu had fought him. Lisanna just stood near Mira quietly, with a distant and dead look on her. It was as her body had stopped all vital functions.

"So… I-I k-killed… N-Natsu!" said Elfman, not able to believe Mira's words, with a deathly pale look on his face realizing he had committed a grave mistake.

"N-No, you didn't do it, E-Elfman" said Mira as tears finally flowed down her cheeks. "It was all my fault".

"E-Even if you… s-say that…" replied Elfman now his eyes were watery. Then a tear fell down from his eye indicating that he too lost control of his emotions. He then silently let his tears flow.

After they were all healed they left the hospital and proceeded straight towards Fairy Tail not bothering to get the reward money at all, even though it was a hefty sum. They didn't bother changing their worn out clothes or cleaning themselves. They just went to Fairy Tail.

When were at the closed doors of the guild they were shivering. Because they didn't know a reason to stand in front of Erica or Lily. They didn't know what they were going to do once they were inside the guild when all of the members will've noticed Natsu missing. The very thought of revealing the news of Natsu's death to the guild members shook their very being, more so for Natsu's family members. Then they realized that they couldn't run away from the truth and had to face them some day or the other; might as well face them today.

So building up the courage they slowly pushed the doors of the guild hall and stepped forward. They were expecting to be greeted cheerfully by everyone, which only made them cringe because they were going to bring bad news.

As they stepped into the guild the last person whom they wanted to meet was the first to greet them. It only made matters for them. They didn't know how to react to the greeting as they just stood there with their face overshadowed by hair.

"So looks like the mission went well! Just look at you guys!" said Erica.

Mira bit her lip at the 'went well' part. Then came the faith-shattering question.

"So…? Where's Natsu? Don't tell you left him behind!" said Erica not realizing the tears that were about to fall from the three kids' eyes.

Not bring able to control their emotions they ran and hugged Erica and cried profusely.

"What happened? Don't tell me you got scared of an S-Class mission?" said Erica trying to cheer them up. "…Guess I'll have to ask Natsu when he comes".

"He won't be coming..." said Mira while crying. "He's gone… forever".

Hearing the shocking statement Erica pulled away from the hug and looked at the three crying kids. The others hearing the conversation were also extremely dumbfounded at the sudden revelation.

"WHAT ARE SAYING?" said the other members as they gathered around the three kids alerting the whole guild. Gray was the first to show up. Makarov who just heard the commotion couldn't believe himself what he had heard. Everyone was devastated when they heard the news.

Mira could only cry as she heard the people question about Natsu. The statement finally sinking into Erica caused tears to flow down her face while her hands traced their path to cover her mouth. Not believing the fact that Natsu, her son and savior had died.

"Igneel… I'm sorry! I couldn't keep my promise" said Erica feeling guilty for sending Natsu on the mission.

But finally snapping out of her sorrow she questioned the three about the incident. The three then calmed down a bit and started explaining things while still sulking. Elfman kept quiet the whole time, not because he didn't know what happened but because he had fatally injured Natsu. Mira and Lisanna took turns t explain what happened. The last part of the description was the most difficult to reveal but they forced themselves anyways. When all was said and done they expected Elfman to be bombarded with insults and accusations but that didn't happen. It was quite the opposite just as Natsu had said 'don't blame Elfman for it'.

No one surrounding the three didn't even raise a finger at Elfman. Then Erica gave the three a hug while crying.

"Thank god you're safe. Natsu… did a good job, I guess!" said Erica tears still streaming down her face.

Hearing these words, the three were so relieved that they burst into tears, especially Elfman who had been spared of the accusations. This moment of tranquility was short lived as the guild hall doors burst open and Lily and Erza came into the guild, with Happy on top of Lily's head. They saw the gathering and went up to it and saw Erica and the Strauss siblings' faces. They had fresh tear marks due to all the crying.

Lily immediately enquired about the situation. The siblings froze up as they knew the person most affected by Natsu's death would be Liliana. Erica signaled them to stand down.

Erica then held Lily by her shoulders and said "Listen to me well and don't blame them for it". She then explained that Natsu had gone on an S-Class mission with the Strauss siblings for a monster subjugation and how during the mission Natsu died while protecting the three standing there. Happy didn't really know the weight of the word 'die' yet so he just listened.

At the end of the description, Liliana had her face hanging down with her bangs covering her eyes. Then she gritted her teeth and rushed forward towards Mira and held her by the collar. Happy just flew off of her head and started circling around Erza.

"How could you…?" she said in a low voice which no one heard except Mira. "HOW COULD YOU DO THAT? HOW COULD YOU NOT TAKE CARE OF MY BROTHER?" she yelled. Erica tried to stop but failed badly.

"WHAT ARE YOU S-CLASS FOR, THEN?" Lily continued. "You let him… let him… DIE!". Mira didn't say a word she just accepted the accusations placed on her tears flowing down her depressed, sullen face. She couldn't reply.

"I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU THIS!" said Lily as she threw Mira back, gave a cold glance to both Mira and Elfman and walked out of the guild hall. Erza listening to all this felt that Lily went a little overboard but also, kind of, agreed with Lily's reasoning. Hearing the loss of a family member had struck her too but she didn't cry, albeit her eyes teared up. She then ran off with Erica to comfort and calm Lily down followed by Happy.

Everyone was dumbfounded at Lily's sudden outburst, but then realized that she was one who loved Natsu the most and was also the closest to him. Mira felt the worst at the moment because she was probably forgiven by all of the guild members except the one from whom she expected forgiveness the most.

Makarov who saw this, didn't expect his family to suffer like this, but the loss of one of most active members of Fairy Tail was surely something that nobody could just shrug off, even after a long time. Though he was also pretty shaken up by the fact that one of people who could challenge his patience was gone. The first person to call him 'gramps' was gone. He was going to miss that kid.

He steeled himself and came onto the stage and announced "Natsu's gone and I know it is a regrettable loss, but we should give him a proper sendoff".

Everyone hearing the announcement hesitantly agreed to the idea. The guild members were definitely affected by the loss but the most affected ones were the ones that interacted with Natsu the most. They were going to need a lot of support and courage to overcome the hurdle, if at all its possible.

The day was very long and very quiet, no one spoke. Even the regular and active members were very quiet. They didn't even move to do their routines. Everyone just sat at the guild tables and had distant look on their faces. No one even had the will to move, they were so lost in grief of the death of their family member.

Finally, the day had ended and it was time to return to home. Everyone had a hard time leaving the Strauss siblings for they had suffered the biggest trauma of all them all. But they pushed themselves anyway and helped the three kids return home.

* * *

 **The next day…**

* * *

Everyone had gathered at the back of the guild where the grave of past fairy tail guild members resided. There stood another grave, a new one with the name 'NATSU DRAGNEEL'. It was a terrible sight to look at, no one had imagined it would be so difficult to face the death of a beloved. Everyone standing there either had tears in their eyes or had their face hung in sorrow.

"How am I going to surpass you now, idiot!?" muttered Gray. "This is the second goal I've lost in my life now…".

"Why did you have to go, Natsu?" said Happy who was with Erica and Lily. Happy had asked where his foster father went that day night only to understand that he was 'gone to a distant place from where he can never return'.

Then, Makarov gave his parting words and paid his respects, followed by all the other guild members. After that everyone returned to the guild, where Lily decided to apologize to Mira for her actions.

"I'm sorry for acting that way" said Lily. "I just couldn't believe what happened yesterday".

"You don't have to apologize to me, I know it is my fault after all" replied Mira. "I just couldn't do anything there; I really am no good for an S-Class rank".

Lily understood the implication all too well and couldn't reply because of the bitterness still lingering from yesterday. Happy didn't say anything following Lily's actions, because he didn't quite understand stuff that much. They just stood there and then suddenly Lily just hugged Mira and burst into tears.

"Bring him back" she said softly while crying. "I can't imagine a world without Natsu!".

Hearing this Mira also started crying. Seeing this the other two standing there joined in the hug trying to console the two girls. Lily still couldn't forgive Mira, albeit asking for forgiveness, but she didn't show any hostility towards her.

This caused severe unrest among the guild members and that day too just dragged on. The guild had the same atmosphere for about a week or so, after which almost everyone returned to their daily routines. Though they had come back to routine the missing guild brawls, the irritating ranting and insult exchange between two rivals was definitely missing and very noticeable especially by the involved parties.

No one knew how the future fairy tail will be without Natsu, but everyone had one thing very well set in their mind, it was to protect the current and upcoming generations of fairy tail with all their might, so as to not experience the same pain ever again.

* * *

 **A/N: This is it for the sixth chap guys. More awesome stuff awaits you so, see you in the next chapter. Until then bye bye...**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Hey guys, I'm back… with another chapter. Enjoy…**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy tail.**

 **Chapter seven: Synonymous world, not-so-synonymous culture.**

* * *

 **In an unknown place…**

A wasteland. Sand all the way to the horizon. And mountains and floating islands were the only things visible beyond the horizon. It was visible in all directions as though it were plastered like wallpaper, seemingly static. And there was a small dust in the middle of nowhere in the wasteland.

"Ow… ugh…" said a voice from a dust cloud. "Where the hell am I?".

As the dust cleared up the person, to whom the voice belonged to, became visible. It was none other than our spikey salmon haired dragon slayer lying down on the ground in a crater that was shaped like his body.

"Is this supposed to be heaven? What a lousy way of bringing a person here!" complained Natsu. "I thought there was supposed to stairs or a heaven express or something?!".

As he was saying this he realized something. "Wait a second… only angels go to heaven…" said Natsu. "…and speaking of angels, I should have wings like Happy if I were an angel" saying so he sprang up to his feet and excitedly started to look for his wings on his back.

"I can't feel them; I guess they must be untouchable or something" he added. Then he started turning in order to look for his wings. He twisted and turned in random and strange ways. He had discovered something in the process.

'I can't use my magic' Natsu realized. 'But I can certainly feel it'.

'And why does this place smell so familiar?' he thought. 'It smells like something or… SOMEONE!'.

"Why does it smell like him?" Natsu spoke his thoughts. 'Oh well, my wings…!'.

He noticed that his appearance hadn't changed since the fight. Then continuing his search for his wings he looked in between his legs he saw something. It wasn't his wings though it was small cloud at a distance that was constantly growing in size. Then he turned around and squinted his eyes to concentrate on the growing cloud and noticed that it wasn't growing it was actually approaching him.

Then after a while watching that he could make out two figures running towards him. Then after another few minutes they were near him when they noticed him, stopped and approached him. Natsu had already known who the two were.

"What are you two doing here Jet, Droy?" said Natsu, which surprised and shocked the said people to their bones. "Are you guys dead… too?"

"Wha-? How?... are you here? You-you're not d-dead?" they fumbled. They were so dumbfounded that they couldn't believe the sight. His condition indicated something which made their face light up like firecrackers.

"How did you escape the Edolas guards?" asked the two.

'Edolas? Guards?' Natsu was confused. Before he could ask any more questions the two panicked looking in the opposite direction of their arrival.

"Guards incoming!" yelled Droy.

"We'll talk later but for now, HAUL ASS!" shouted the two as they picked up a confused Natsu and bolted off in a random direction.

After a while, they had slowed down a bit and had gotten into a grassland, which apparently came out of nowhere. Natsu had finally settled down, because his motion sickness had kicked in when he was hurled like a log during the whole run. It wasn't much of a pain but still could become a hurdle if it stayed for too long.

Then they stopped after a while and rested. Then came the Q & A round. With questions being thrown relentlessly towards Natsu by the Jet and Droy.

Not being able to put up with the questions, "STOP!" said Natsu. "One question at a time…".

"First things first, are you alright?" said Droy looking at the injuries Natsu had sustained.

"Yeah. Never better" replied Natsu with grin.

"So how did you get here? And how did you escape the guards?" asked Jet.

'So this place is not heaven. And this place is… Edolas, I guess. And they have the scent of genuine fairy tail members. So it means only one thing and that is I'm not dead and have come to some other world… interesting' thought Natsu gathering all the info he had obtained during the recent events.

"I just got lucky!" said Natsu with a sheepish grin.

"Expected as much" sighed the two.

"Okay now that you're here, let's go back to the guild!" said Jet.

"Yeah!" said Natsu.

Then the two just went in a random direction followed by Natsu. He was just trying to fit in as much as possible. Then they reached a very random area which had nothing in plain sight. Then Jet knocked something in thin air.

"Hey it's us, open quick we're being tailed" said Jet. After a few moments, suddenly a building came into picture. It was a tree with a fairy tail logo hung from two branches that almost formed a heart.

Natsu could only smile at that. Then the door opened and let the two inside. Natsu followed them inside. The two in front stood in such a way that Natsu wasn't visible. They signaled Natsu to not move beforehand. Then they greeted everyone and all of them gathered near them.

"So you got the things requested already?" asked Levy. "What took you so long, dumbasses?".

"Yeah, we got 'em" replied Jet. "We had to take a little detour on the way…".

"We found something on the way…" said Droy as he and Jet moved sideways a bit to reveal Natsu with a grin on his face.

Everyone just had 'Oh it's just Natsu' reaction. Then "IT'S NATSU!" was heard loud and clear. they had completely forgotten the fact that Natsu was captured by the Edolas guards.

"Uh… a little reminder…" said Droy. "We got company!" he continued with a stupid smile snapping all the members out of their imaginations.

"Tell that first, idiots!" said the whole guild in a state of panic.

"Get ready to relocate" alerted Levy. "Give me those, we need now".

'What the heck… is going on here?' thought Natsu looking at the chaos. 'Relocation? Why?'.

"Okay, everybody heads up" shouted Jet as he closed the door and locked it.

"Energy level 50%" alerted Levy.

"They are close, hurry!" shouted Macao, looking out of the window.

"And they are pretty dangerous this time" added Wakaba scaring the people inside a little bit.

"We're all gonna be captured!" shrieked Elfman further adding to the panic.

"Where are we going?" asked Natsu still confused about the situation. The idea of relocation was not so good in Natsu's rule book. It sounded painful.

"Don't know, it's always random when we do this!" replied Levy.

'Huh? Random? Okay... so much for asking' thought Natsu. 'I have a bad feeling about this'.

"They are here, we gotta go, NOW!" shouted Macao panicking at the arrival of the guards. They had surrounded the guild tree and started charging and attacking it.

"Energy level 100%..." said Levy. "… and poof!". As soon as that was said the guild started to shake violently. So violently that Natsu's motion sickness had kicked in and he slumped on the floor. Everyone was also in the same condition minus the motion sickness part.

From the outside it looked like the guild tree was melting into the ground. It shifted and shifted and was finally underground and gone.

"Damn! Those fairy tail bastards escaped again" said one of the guards. "We'll have to report this failure to her" *GULP*.

* * *

 **A few moments later, in an unknown place…**

* * *

"Man… that is so annoying" said Macao looking in Levy's direction. "This just gets more and more annoying every single time you use it".

"So? What should I do?" Levy shot back. "We have no other way of escaping. So deal with it".

"Yeah, whatever, you're right anyways" replied Macao.

"Ugh… that hurts" said Natsu weakly with his mouth foaming. 'My hunch was right, this sucks... Big time'. Then he slowly got up and sat on a table, still groggy from the motion sickness.

Everyone's focus returned to Natsu, who also noticed the sudden burden of gazes. then he brought his head up and looked up saw the teary face of most of the guild members. This startled him greatly. He didn't know how to react to that expression.

"Hey what's the matter?" asked Natsu nervously.

"You're alive!" said the chorus. "You escaped from them".

"Uh huh" was Natsu's reply.

"Life sure is difficult for mages in Edolas" sighed Wakaba from a corner.

"So you're well I see" said Gray. He was… dressed… a little too much. Clad in clothing that made him look twice his normal size; Gray was different from the place where Natsu had previously come from.

"Why are wearing so many clothes?" asked Natsu.

"It's cold that's why. Why?" replied Gray with a weak voice. "You are feeling cold too?".

"Nah, I'm fine" said Natsu. 'Holy shit! Gray here feels cold and sounds like a girl! Puhahaha-' Natsu laughed mentally while making a controlled stupid expression.

"So how did you escape? It should've been tough" said Elfman with the similar weak voice looking at Natsu's injuries.

'What? Not Elfman too!' thought Natsu laughing more and more inwardly which caused his controlled expression to become uncontrolled.

"I just got lucky!" he said with the expression still on his face. Everyone looking at that definitely got the wrong idea.

"Oh come on! Spill the beans already!" said Macao as though he was nudging Natsu. He just wanted to 'know'.

'If these two are like these then how would I be? Only one way to find out!' Natsu came to a conclusion while realizing something as well but he shrugged it off for later.

"I fought my way through!" he said confidently which put a stupidly surprised look on many faces in the guild.

The guild members burst into peals of laughter when they heard this. "You…!? Fight…!? Don't give us that crap, you chicken!".

"Uh..." Natsu was thrown off guard even though he was mentally prepared. 'Okay that pretty much says everything about me' sighed Natsu.

"Whatever, if you don't believe me it doesn't matter" replied Natsu which caused the members to gasp in unison.

"Natsu didn't cry?" said a girl with blonde hair.

'Who's this?' Natsu raised an eyebrow. 'I've never seen her in fairy tail. Must be a new member'.

"This should make you cry" said the girl as she made her way to focus and came near Natsu. Then suddenly she just grabbed Natsu and held him in a face lock. "Lucy hold #41"

"Ow, ow, ow… stop" said Natsu but he got no reply. Instead Lucy changed her hold. This time an ankle lock. "Hold #26". Natsu had not experienced such excruciating pain since his days with Igneel. This was just the embodiment of the hellish training Igneel had him go through.

"Aaahhh…! That hurts!" said Natsu while reaching out to no one.

"Poor guy, he gets it always!" said Macao and Wakaba together. "Just wait until he cries!".

"Give the guys a break already!" said Levy from one corner of the guild.

"What? You wanna be next, bitch?" shot back Lucy while holding Natsu in a choke.

"What was that bitch? You wanna go?" replied Levy rolling up her non-existent sleeve. Diverted by Natsu's cries of pain Lucy ignored her and continued her activity.

Lucy just kept changing her holds and Natsu just… couldn't do anything. But now fed up with the pain he shouted "ENOUGH!" while breaking out of the hold.

"Natsu resisted Lucy!" said the guild members. They were being surprised one after another that day. It was awkward and incredible.

"Will you cut it out with the twisting and stuff!" said Natsu with an annoyed tone.

"Sorry Natsu" Lucy apologized realizing that she had caused pain all the time Natsu was subjected to such torture. But it felt strange to her that Natsu suddenly retaliated after such a long time. but she just shrugged it off thinking it as a normal human reaction.

"By the way where is Erza?" said Natsu.

Everyone snapped out of their discussions and looked at each other and then at Natsu. They had fearful looks on their faces at the mention of the name. But more importantly they were puzzled as to why Natsu was asking for her. He too was very confused about their reaction.

"What do mean where's Erza?" said a feminine voice. "You missing her or something?".

"What?" was Natsu's reply. "I just wanna know where she is?".

The person to whom the voice belonged to revealed herself. It was none other than Lily. She too was different; as a matter of fact, all the fairy tail members were different. Her attitude was not the same. She was wearing skimpy clothes, just a bikini top and a pair of baggy pants. This caused him to look for Cana. When he found her he was… shocked. She was dressed to the neck and was all lady like, delicate and soft. Macao and Wakaba looked young and were the ones lecturing Elfman on how to be a man and Gray was finding clothes to wear albeit wearing a ton of them already. Jet and Droy were more active members. Nab actually did jobs. Vijeteer didn't dance at all. There were people missing; Gramps, Erza and Erica were missing.

'This is just creeping me out!' Natsu complained internally.

"She must be commanding those guards to capture us" said Lisanna. She sounded a tad bit aggressive. But since realized the 'different world' he just dismissed the thought.

'Okay, so Erza here... not friendly' concluded Natsu. Then his thought continued on researching the people present. The Strauss siblings were different except Lisanna, who seemed more… Lisanna like. Mira was all polite and soft spoken. Seeing that made Natsu sick to his gut. Levy was more aggressive with her speech and actions, and had a bit of rivalry with the new member Lucy.

'Damn! This is gonna take a while to get used to' thought Natsu holding his forehead.

Then suddenly an alarm sounded in the guild. It was loud and indicated danger as everyone in the hall were in a state of panic.

"Just in time. Those bastards never let up trying to catch us" said Levy with an annoyed tone.

Natsu quickly followed Macao to a window and saw a few guards approaching the guild with spears that had some kind of a crystal embedded in them.

'Oh this is the nuisance' wondered Natsu. 'Let's take care of it'.

"Everyone get rea-" Levy was cut off by the sound of door being smashed open by Natsu who rushed out of the guild.

"That idiot! He'll get himself and all of us killed" said Macao as he followed the rest of the members out of the guild in an attempt to bring Natsu back inside.

"Natsu, this is no time to show-off that you escaped from there!" shouted Lily. "Get that nut-job back inside".

"Everyone can shut up and just watch" replied Natsu with confidence while cracking his knuckles.

"Goddamn it" said Wakaba. "He's definitely going to get himself killed".

Natsu then charged the group of eight soldiers. "Freeze and surred…e-" was all that was heard when Natsu punched the lights of the first soldier. The four in front were instantly knocked to the floor, with the one being hit out for good. The last four were quick to dodge and moved out of the way. Then they surrounded Natsu and tried to stab him. Natsu just jumped over the attack and landed on the virtual platform made by the spears. Then he kicked two opposite guards and landed on the floor when the spears retracted. Before the remaining two could react, Natsu held their collars and smashed their heads effectively knocking the four out in a few seconds. Then he approached the one knocked on the floor who were trying to recover. He gave a very creepy grin, scaring the soon-to-be victims, before smashing their heads together as well.

Then he directed a glare towards the last guy. "You want in, Mr. Guard?" asked Natsu politely.

The said person simply nodded against it and was about to make a run for it when he was caught by the back of his collar. "You better tell your higher ups not to bother us, or ELSE!" said Natsu with a deadly look on his face. The poor guards almost pissed his pants when he was freed. Natsu then turned around and walked back, to a group of dumbfounded guild members, with a grin on his face and a thumbs up victory sign.

"It's about time we took off, let's just quickly reloc-" Natsu stopped midway as his motion sickness kicked in at the mention of the relocation thingy, and he slumped on the floor with his butt sticking out like a sore thumb.

"So much for trying to look cool" said the guild in unison at the shocking change of events. "Get the idiot and leave".

Said person was collected and thrown into the guild like a sack and then followed by everyone. Then the guild just disappeared out of plain sight.

As soon as the relocation was done Natsu was the first one to recover albeit being the first to fall sick. The others soon followed suite and got back to their seats. Then came the shocking part everyone who laughed at Natsu came and bowed down to apologize.

"Uhhh…? What the heck are you doing?" asked Natsu with a tilted face with question marks flying all over his head. "STOP THAT!".

"We're sorry for doubting you Natsu! Please forgive us!" said Macao and Wakaba. They were so stunned by Natsu's performance that they felt ashamed that they don't even have the courage to stand up to the guards.

"Huh? I did what I did!" said Natsu. "Don't do that. It's uh… making me sick".

"Okay. But tell us where did you learn those moves?" asked the ones gathered around Natsu.

"Oh that! Mom taught me" said Natsu with a thumbs up.

The statement caused Lily to perk up and march forward towards Natsu. Then she caught him by the collar and gave a piercing look.

"What the hell did you say?" she shouted at him. "That no good mother of ours is giving fighting lessons is it?".

'What is she talking about? Is mom a bad person here?' thought Natsu. Quickly realizing that none of the stuff he knows is not the same now, he decided to correct himself. He had almost forgotten the fact that this place is Edolas and none of the stuff from 'Earthland Fairy Tail' exists, including magic. So relationships may be different, people and attitude, and most importantly culture and rules of the world may be totally different.

"Well… not exactly. I just imitated some of the trained guards hired by the Edolas Council, I guess" he said with a nervous smile.

"Fine. Don't you ever take the name of that bitch here ever again" said Lily with a bit of scorn in her voice while releasing Natsu from her clutches. "Our mother is dead. She isn't our mother".

Natsu sighed a breath of relief. 'That was too close. I could triggered a catastrophe. Phew!' saying so he wiped the non-existent sweat off of his forehead. Knowing his sister the word catastrophe was an understatement, a universal fact. This experience told Natsu loud and clear that he shouldn't let out too much information about Earthland, as he called it, so as to not let them get suspicious about his identity.

'But that's strange why is mom being accused of something really bad' wondered Natsu all the while looking at the scornful expression of his sister which gradually calmed down to her sweet smiling face. 'I've got to find out, but… I guess… this is not the right time'.

Then his stomach grumbled in the most embarrassing way snapping him out of his trance and alerting all the members of the guild simultaneously. Natsu was instantly flustered as he made his way to the bar with his hands twitching behind his back and his head hung in embarrassment. He quietly ordered something which did not involve revealing that he was even remotely related to magic.

Then everyone had returned to their respective chores after a hearty laugh.

* * *

 **Elsewhere… a few minutes ago…**

* * *

"Are you sure you wanna report this to commander?" said one of the guards in a group of eight.

"I-I d-don't wanna but I can't get away with a false report!" said the guard addressed above nervously.

Then he looked at the other six standing behind him. They were in the same nervous state as him or worse depending upon the person's mental strength. They all had their heads hanging and were muttering out random stuff, most of it sounded like prayers.

"Oh god, please protect me!" the guards said his prayers as he knocked at the door.

"Commander, w-we h-have the report of the o-operation" said the guard as he looked at the others behind him.

"Okay, come in and report" said a stern feminine voice.

"Yes ma'am" replied the guard as he made his way into the room by slowly pushing the door and stepping inside stealthily.

This kind of presentation raised the flag of failure in the mind of the red-haired spear wielding beauty. This ticked her off but she didn't show it. She was quite small for the post but her skill must have brought her there. Being young and all she hated failing at anything. She wanted to know the reason, if it actually existed, which it did, for the failure before you know what…

"Okay now spit it!" she said in a sharp tone which shook the guard. But he quickly recovered, though a little.

'Here goes nothin' "We have failed in capturing the fairy tail members" the guard said. "There's was one major reason behind it".

"Oh, one reason, eh? Better be worth my time!" replied the girl.

"They escaped this time too, but there was an intervention" said the guard. "A member of fairy tail supposedly defeated the guards sent to apprehend the people there".

"Oh, so who is this person?" asked the girl with the vein popping on her forehead, more because of curiosity than anger.

"We couldn't get the name but the person had pink hair" said the guard.

"Pink Hair…?" she muttered while realizing something. "PINK HAIR!" she yelled.

"I, Erza Knightwalker, have never made a mistake…" she said in a harsh tone startling the guard. "Are you accusing ME OF FAILURE!".

"But that's what the report says ma'am" he said in weak voice all the while shivering in fear of his life.

"AARGH… whatever!" she said in an annoyed tone. "You idiots have never completed one assigned task properly, not even once. I'll have to do this myself!" she grunted as she slammed the door open to stomp her way out of the room and into the hall with her spear on her back.

As she prepared for leaving for the 'easy-ass' mission, she went and stood in front of a room. She knocked at the door and got permission and went inside.

"Supreme commander, looks like one of the captured members of fairy tail has escaped. I think his name is... Natsu. He has also interfered with our objective as well this time" she said.

"Oh, find this insolent fool and bring him to me. I know how to deal with such ingrates. Use force if needed, but don't hurt him. I'll deal with him personally!" said a feminine voice in a very venomous tone. "You may leave" she sternly.

"Y-Yes ma'am" said Erza as she made her way out of the room and shut the door.

"Finally I can meet you after a long time, Natsu" said the voice again but this time in a very calm and longing manner. "How I've missed you, my son".

* * *

 **A/N: That's it for the chapter. Stay tuned to find out how the story unveils. I know, I know… you must be wondering about Edo-Natsu. You gotta read to find out. See you guys in the next chapter… until then… Bye-Bye…**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Hey guys, I'm back… with another chapter. I'll change a few things here and there, so there's something new to read. Enjoy…**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy tail.**

 **Chapter Eight: Repeated History**

* * *

'How is he alive? I did capture him!' thought Erza as she was gathering a handful of soldiers to capture the 'criminals'. 'if he was sighted with fairy tail then that can mean only one thing. The execution was an illusion'.

"But how? I shouldn't have mistaken, let alone fail!" she spoke her thoughts loud enough for the soldiers to eavesdrop.

"Is something the matter ma'am?" asked one of the guards.

"Nothing. Let's move out people" she commanded the guards. They followed her lead out to the back of the castle and mounted the Legion. Then they took off to complete the mission.

The first thing about the mission itself was the most difficult part, finding the fairies. They had no clue about where to find them, because of the constant relocation and stuff the trace was pretty hard to catch.

Anyways, a mission is a mission and so the search started from the area which was last reported. The initial search showed no results what-so-ever. But after thorough inspection few clues kicked up like dust while stepping on sand. They were negligible but were pretty important from the Edolas' point of view. The best way to track them is to follow the bore lines the guild had made underneath the ground.

Finally, after a day of researching they had discovered the direction of the trail. The next thing was obvious, follow it. So they did and it took about a week and a half to get to the location where the bustling guild was located. But they didn't jump the gun yet. They thought that gathering information about the main nuisance should be more important. This was pretty new considering Erza as she was one who went in unplanned most of the time, it wasn't required there though.

Observing the condition of the guards from the report gave Erza a sense of caution, because the word 'effortlessly defeated' was ringing in her mind. Sure she was well above that level but something about this nuisance gave her an eerie feeling. Well she wanted to make sure the mission was 100% success and thus the precautions.

Eavesdropping on the guild building or its inmates was certainly no cake walk. They were always on the look-out for the guards which made things even worse. But they finally got the information required. Only one person was solely responsible for the previous fail, Natsu and nobody else. The name made Erza's blood boil, constantly reminding her of her 'failure'. She couldn't take it and was begging for the chance to annihilate the person causing her so much pain. But as orders have to be followed she had to bring him alive and unharmed, but with force. 'Don't know a way for that but definitely there should be some workaround for it' was the solution for the problem in the corner of her head.

Then came the time to make the decisive strike. It was easy, just bust in the guild with guns blazing where the guards capture the guild members and Erza, the nuisance. Underestimating your opponents can be such a big mistake, but who were to inform that to them.

They hanged the plan a bit and decided to let the people surrender and lure out nuisance and capture him using the element of surprise, simple enough and effective. But never does a plan A work like a charm. Well here it did, but the aftermath was… unexpected.

"Fairy Tail, surrender!" shouted one of the guards, alerting the members of Fairy Tail and also sending them in a state of panic.

"The heck is going on?" said Macao looking out of the window . "Why didn't the alarm sound?".

"The goddamn EG's are here again?" added Wakaba looking out the same window as Macao grinding his cheek with him for clearer view.

"Give us a damn break already!" complained Levy.

Then Macao looked at Levy and said "You goofing off with our safety again?".

Pissed by Macao's accusation she retorted back with a loud "NO!".

"I don't believe the idiot. She is a klutz after all" Lucy added fuel to the fire. "She must have been slacking off during the repairs!".

"What did you just say useless meat?" she replied not thoroughly pissed at the claim made by her archenemy.

"I said the truth, green horizon!" shot back Lucy while stomping towards Levy.

"Hey this isn't the time to fight!" Natsu intervened. "Focus on the enemy".

"That's strange, they came sooner than expected" said Lily. "Natsu's threat didn't even flinch them".

"Now that you say it, it gets more strange" added Mira calmly.

"I think they came here with some serious back up" Jet concluded. "Otherwise they wouldn't even dare come here after that beatdown last week".

"Okay if that's the case, I'll go check it out" replied Natsu. "Everybody stay here".

"Be careful" said Lily.

Natsu gave a thumbs up backed up by a powerful grin and dashed out of the guild. Once outside he noticed that the guards were evenly spread in an inescapable circle around the building albeit being very few in number.

Alerted by Natsu's arrival the guards all grouped together. Then they charged head on towards Natsu, who replied them with the same action. The spectators inside the guild were all expecting total annihilation which… almost happened.

As Natsu was ploughing his way through the guards, a swift, blunt side, hit of a spear knocked him back a few meters. Falling and skidding to a stop kicking up some dust in the way, was the not the best of the ways for him to be dismissed.

Everyone were shocked at the sudden change of events but their shock became nullified when they saw the culprit. They were instantly bathing in sweat when they saw one of the Edolas commanders personally arriving to greet them. It was none other than Erza Knightwalker in her full glory.

"So much for escaping earlier and effortlessly defeating my underlings" she said looking at Natsu's direction. "Well… now that the nuisance is out of the way let's get the other Fairies".

'Soooo… this is the Edolas Erza? Man I thought she would be better here, but no!' Natsu thought while comfortably lying on the ground. Upon hearing her words, he sprung back to his feet. 'Some things never change I guess!' he sighed in his mind.

"Who said that I was out for good?" Natsu said bringing hope back to the faces of the guild members and simultaneously pissing Erza off as well.

"Is that all you've got? What a disappointment!" taunted Natsu further increasing the blood lust Erza was giving off.

"You… you escaped? How?" Erza said. "I've never failed once before. I'll make you pay for that!" she continued while readying her spear.

"Man, what a narcissist!" he replied with his hands on his hips and his head nodding in disbelief.

Hearing that caused Erza to snap as she charged the guy with great speed. As soon as he was in her spears reach she slashed him using her spear. Natsu dodged it in the nick of time and back flipped to a safe distance.

"Hey guys, take care of the small fry for me" Natsu shouted out to them. "I'll honor our chief guest here".

Everyone standing there just looked at each other and back and understood. Regaining their morale, they got their respective weapons out and rushed out outside while tackling the outnumbered guards.

"Don't take your eyes off me!" she called out to him before slashing at him once again.

Natsu dodged that too but didn't have time to rest as a barrage of attacks was sent his way. They were fast and were heavy and deadly too. He had enough time to just barely dodge them. He dodged some and was injured slightly by some. Then he deliberately left himself wide open for attack. A good bait, which worked, Erza got lured in and was in Natsu's melee range. A sloppy mistake on her part.

Natsu was quick to use the opportunity and tried punching her. She too just barely dodged it. She couldn't even block because the length of the spear was interfering. Not finding the condition too favorable she bounced back a few meters as soon as she found an opening.

Now it was Natsu's turn to lead the offense. He rushed forward towards Erza with this thought 'If I attack her with a punch she would definitely block it with her spear. I'll snatch it away at that time making her defenseless!'. A good strategy indeed.

As he followed his plan he approached her with great speed with a fist cocked back. Looking at the obvious Erza had a smirk on her face. Noticing this Natsu's face also got an unnoticeable smirk. He pushed his fist forward and noticed that Erza was also readying her guard. As soon she held her spear Natsu opened his fist and brought his other hand forward as well. This caused Erza to loosen her guard in response. Natsu couldn't catch the spear but grabbed something else in the process but was thrown off as Erza ducked backwards under the flying Natsu.

The unpredictable movement caused Natsu to fall flat on the ground. Then he recovered and looked at his hands and remembered the feeling. It wasn't hard, it was soft… incredibly soft. Assuming the worst he hesitantly turned towards Erza who was… covering her chest with her hands. She had a flustered expression and was blushing madly and looking at Natsu with disgust filled eyes. Natsu was speechless… he then looked at his hands once again and remembered the felling once again.

"That was so soft!" he muttered.

"You perverted brat!" she said with her hair covering her eyes before raising her head.

Hearing the words made the girl to extremely embarrassed causing her to frantically attack Natsu, who too had a flustered reaction on his face now.

But Natsu quickly regained his composure and realized something. 'This was not I had planned, but oh well… works either ways!'.

The girl just kept her relentless attacks going on and Natsu just kept dodging them. But now the attacks were more random and inaccurate and sloppy to the point where Natsu had to put very little effort in dodging them.

But then she kept pushing back Natsu until they arrived back to where the guild was. Noticing the guild members Natsu distanced himself to safety.

"Good work guys!" he commented looking at the beaten and tied up guards.

Looking back at Erza he noticed that the continuous attacks made her tired. So grabbing the opportunity he taunted her with his index finger to 'come get him'. She fell into the trap.

As she tried stabbing him, Natsu dodged sideways and grabbed the shaft of the spear and gave a strong pull on it. Then punched Erza square in her stomach. The added momentum of the pull pushed the air out of her system. Out of breath she couldn't even stand properly. With the help of her spear she somehow got back to her feet and shakily assumed a fighting stance.

Natsu just walked forward and but now had a serious expression on his face. His bleeding scratches and piercing look and shadowed face overcast by the rear facing sun made him look like a nightmare. Erza took a step or two back in fear. Noticing this Natsu stopped.

"You… best give up capturing us!" he said in a very cold, serious tone.

"No! I won't return without capturing you" she replied in a broken voice. "I can't fail".

"You're an eyesore" he said as he was about to hit her but stopped midway when he saw that she already shivering from fear. "Get out of my sight!" he added as he pointed towards the tied up guards.

Then he just turned away and walked to the guild signaling them to follow. They all gave a look towards Erza and went inside and disappeared with the guild.

Erza finally lost her strength and fell to her knees. She was scared beyond words. Then after a few minutes she snapped out of her trance and left the scene on her legion with her guards.

* * *

 **In a random place…**

* * *

"Ugh... we have to stop doing this over and over again!" said Macao piled up in a randomly twisted position.

"Goddamn it. I hate this!" said Natsu being the one of the first few to recover from the relocation.

"Damn right you are!" added Lucy dusting herself as she stood up.

"Shut up you dumb-asses!" replied Levy. "Quit your complaining if you wanna survive! This thing won't run if you use your sorry asses to fix it every single time!".

"Yeah, what she said!" Lily backed Levy. "You better be grateful rather than complain!".

"Huh? What did you say? Grateful to HER?!" Lucy shot back. "I rather die than do that!".

"Hey, sis quit helping the girl!" Natsu directed a comment towards Lily.

"Oh, baby brother has the balls to talk back to his sister, eh?" Lily said with her eye twitching in annoyance.

"Wanna go? You, idiot of a sis!" replied Natsu as he rolled up his sleeve. Lily also put up the same reaction followed by Lucy and Levy glaring daggers at each other.

They pounced at each other and started a cat fight. This piqued the interest of the other hot-blooded guild members also.

The fight escalated to a guild wide brawl with a handful amount of people out of it. Gray and Elfman were cowering behind Mira and Lisanna who were trying to calm the guild.

Natsu realized something and tear fell down his cheek. Seeing this the guild immediately stopped fighting and asked him if he was alright.

"It's nothing guys. I'm just happy is all!" he replied in order to relieve the tension off the worried guild members.

It seemed strange but then they just shrugged it off. Then everyone settled down and resumed their activities. Natsu sat at the bar and ordered for a drink. While he was at it he was approached by Lily and Lisanna.

"So answer this now! It's been bothering me for a while" said Lily. "Tell me where did you really learn those moves? I never remember you being good at fighting at all!".

"Yeah tell us Natsu!" Lisanna joined in the conversation.

Natsu was caught off guard as he choked on his drink. He knew that the lie couldn't hold for long, but this was just too early. He looked at the two curious faces that were staring at him intently, waiting patiently for the reply, from the corner of his eye. They were too difficult to face and so he averted his gaze, all the while thinking about another lie.

"Well… what can I say… he… he he…" Natsu said with a sheepish smile while scratching the back of his head showing his nervousness. It wasn't for the displayed reason though and Natsu knew that very well.

Thinking of random stuff Natsu couldn't even think properly due to nervousness much less think of a valid excuse to get away from situation. But then luck was in his favor and an idea hit his head.

'Why don't I just use the existing reason again? That's fine I guess…?' Natsu thought. Following his plan he started to say but before he could even open his mouth Lily cut in.

"Don't even think about it. Saying the past reason doesn't suffice!" she said in a stern voice.

Natsu was dumbstruck after hearing that. 'How did she figure me out? Damn that's scary. Oh… I don't know… I don't know… I don't know! What the hell should I say?' he panicked internally. 'Am I so freaking easy to read?!'.

"Come on tell us Natsu! You looked so cool fighting the bad guys! I could never do that even if I wanted to!" Lisanna said immediately causing Natsu to get flustered causing more mental havoc.

'First lets calm down' Natsu let out a sigh. 'Okay lets just think… think!' *Ting* 'Ah-hah! This should make a good reason!'. "Okay, fine. I'll spill it out. I learnt it from a guy in the main city" he said.

"Ho…? I should believe that?" Lily questioned with squinted eyes.

"Yes. Well once he saved me from the guards in the city and he too looked cool while kicking their ass. So I begged him for help, coz you know… I was too scared to fight back!" Natsu made up a story.

"Okay. That's possible, I guess… considering the fact that you were such a pussy before, someone had to show up to help you!" Lily sighed.

'WHAT? A pussy?' Natsu was enraged internally at the remark but quickly remembered that it wasn't him but his Edolas counterpart. 'Now that I think about it where the hell is he? Is he really dead? I remember Erza saying something about failing' he pondered. 'So I guess she really thought that Edo-me escaped. But in fact he hasn't. I gotta find out before my secret comes out!'.

* * *

 **In Edolas palace…**

* * *

Erza came in the palace with her head hung in shame. She had failed another failure, the second one to be precise. The worst part about the failure is that she failed at the same task, of capturing an insolent mage, a brat at that.

Erza entered a room, which housed the person who gave her the capture order. "Report, how was the task?" the feminine voice from before asked in a nonchalant way after observing the posture.

"Supreme Commander Erica… I have failed at capturing Natsu or any other fairy tail members!" Erza replied with a voice that sounded a little nervous.

"Oh…? As expected! He showed resistance and you just let him go!" she said in a venomous voice.

"I apologize for my grave mistake. I will accept any punishment you issue" Erza replied after kneeling on a knee with respect. "I have but one wish!".

"What is it? I will fulfill that at least!" she said in a displeased tone while twitching slightly.

"I request you to keep me in-charge of capturing Natsu, Supreme Commander" Erza suggested in a very subtle way she hadn't given up on the mission. Seeing that, Erica sighed internally and complied with the request.

"Fine. But you better your job correctly this time!" Erica commanded.

"Yes, ma'am" Erza replied as she exited the room by closing the door slowly.

As soon as the door was Erica threw a fit while muttering which sounded cussing to anyone who would've heard it. 'Damn he got away this time too!' she imagined while clenching her fist. 'When am I ever going to meet you. More importantly, I can't keep this up much longer, Erza do your job before the King gets wind of this'.

Outside as soon as Erza shut the door completely she too let out a heavy sigh. 'That was close. I was almost given a punishment, luckily I didn't give her a chance' Erza thought. Reminiscing the fight, she had with Natsu she had a mix of emotions in her mind. Anger, frustration, feeling of failure and admiration. 'Wait what…? Admiration? Well now that I think about it, no one has ever stood up to my skill with spear, let alone with bare hands'. 'I want to fight with him again. That fight was the one thing I enjoyed in a while' she wondered.

"Wait for me, Natsu… I'll be back for revenge!" she promised herself with a confident glow in her eyes.

The next thing that happened is well… the actualization of the above promise. With yet another failure in her hands, she was left to fend for herself just like the last time.

The clichéd report with yet another promise to capture and subdue the menace was made. Yet another punishment was dodged. Yet another fit for not capturing the menace was thrown. These constants were the only things that cycled throughout for a few days.

The vicious cycle went for days… weeks… months… and finally when a year was coming to an end Erica was too tired to issue another capture order, but she had to do it anyways. The only thing that changed, in fact increased, was the worry Erica had, all the time, about the matter reaching the Edolas king.

Erza on the other hand had different results. Her admiration for Natsu had increased to the point that her food wouldn't digest if she didn't imagine him for a day. She truly had fun fighting Natsu and had developed an unconscious crush on our pink dragon slayer for no apparent reason. Well… all of it was out of admiration and she had no issues accepting it… in her thoughts.

What Erica feared most happened and the news of the failure of the capture of the mages reached the Edolas King. The effect… was pretty devastating, to say the least.

"You summoned us, your highness?" said one person standing a little ahead of a group of four people who were clad in weapons and armor and a normal dress.

"Yes Hughes! I have a request of you!" the old man said. "It is for the sake of Edolas".

"Your wish our command!" Hughes replied. "I would be honored to serve the country!".

"I command you four exterminate all the mage guilds that exist in Edolas after a year of wait!" the old man said in a stern, commanding voice. "Show no mercy. Let them be tranquil for now!".

"Oh a surprise attack I see. Your highness, your command will be executed with utmost priority" Hughes replied.

The King signaled the four to be dismissed while retaining Hughes. "I have a feeling we have a traitor in our ranks".

"Oh, interesting. Do you have any suspects, your highness?" Hughes asked.

"Keep an eye for our Supreme Commander, Hughes!" the old man highlighted. "I have a feeling she might know something about the current situation".

Erza was stumped when she got the direct orders, from the Edolas king, to eliminate the mage guilds. Well not that she cared about them anyway, but she won't be able to fight Natsu if that happened though.

Hearing the news, Erica decided to act as a true citizen of the Edolas empire so as to not raise any unwanted attention towards herself. Her worst fears had actually materialized, but she was thankful that she still had one year's time to do something about it.

* * *

 **One week later…**

* * *

"Okay time for some ass kicking!" said Natsu in a monotone voice. "Everybody round up for the show!".

Natsu stepped outside cracking his knuckles, while the others gathered at the windows of the guild hall to watch the 'show'.

"Aree? Guys…? Is it just me or is the horizon visible too clearly?" Natsu question tilting his head with hands on his hips. Everyone waited quite the while for the receiving party to arrive but no one showed up.

"No one's here!" Lily commented. "Get back inside! And stop showing off".

"Ugh… fine, whatever" replied Natsu in an annoyed tone as he walked into the guild and slammed the door shut.

The same happened a little while later on the scheduled time. No one turned up, again. Natsu was slightly confused about the sudden disappearance of his warm up exercise.

"What happened to those guys? Are they bored too?" asked Natsu innocently.

"No they must've finally understood the fear of us mages" said Macao, with Wakaba behind him nodding in agreement.

"They must be planning an ambush for us!" said Elfman.

"Ha ha ha ha… you've got to be kidding me! Ambush…? Them…? Yeah right!" said Levy in an overconfident tone.

"Well for now let's rejoice! It's been a month since they stopped showing up!" said Jet raising a fist in the air.

'Ah! Some things never change no matter where you go!' thought Natsu as he looked at the guild roaring in enjoyment and partying. He too joined them.

This state of tranquility remained for about a year during which several events had occurred. The guild learned of the news that the empire has ceased the capture of mages. Several other mage guilds, that were in hiding, resurfaced again. Natsu who had lost his means of training went to the city to do work, where he did something that resembled the work of mages in Earthland. As a result, the other mages followed his idea and also participated in this kind of work. This increased the influence mages had on people.

In fairy tail, things changed a lot. Natsu had so close to the Edolas fairy tail, that he couldn't even tell that he didn't belong there was from another world anymore. He had also learnt of the fact that he and Lily were blood siblings and Erica was their actual mother. She had betrayed fairy tail and joined the Edolas kingdom serving as their citizen. Things with Lisanna were also smooth as he enjoyed her company the most out of all. Lucy and Levy fought a little less… just a little though. Gray and Elfman had become a lot braver than their past selves, inspired by Natsu.

* * *

 **End of the year…**

* * *

The time had now come for the Edolas army to finally make their move and erase all the mages from Edolas 'for the sake of the country'. So the King made an announcement to the people for a public speech.

Following day, the whole of Edolas town was gathered in the palace hall where the King was to give his speech. They all had no idea of what topic would be addressed in the speech, but they were all excited because the atmosphere had a positive aura to it. Well that's what seemed to the normal people. The mages on the other hand felt something suspicious, but shrugged it off seeing the other people were unfazed by it.

"Look King Faust has arrived!" said a random person pointing to the pedestal of the palace. Then loud roar of cheers was heard. It was the crowd addressing the Faust, who in turn returned the same.

"To everyone gathered here greetings. I, Faust, king of Edolas, have gathered you to tell you a good news. We have discovered a means to progress our country further. We will incorporate magic in our daily lives to do so. But as we all know only mages can use magic and they don't want to share it with us. That is why they offer services instead of magic itself. They have been influencing you all this time to stop you from prospering while they benefit! But no more. From today we will also use magic. We will exterminate all mages who oppose this idea. For Edolas also has to prosper! For Edolas!" proclaimed Faust.

A deafeningly loud roar of cheers was heard. But here were others who were devastated, because they were blamed for a crime that was never committed. Because they knew why they didn't offer their magic, but instead their services.

"What kinda crap is that senile old man spouting?!" growled Jet. "This is bad I have to inform Natsu and the others, of this, in town".

Saying so, Jet made his way through the dispersing crowd and sped towards the said group as fast as he could. Natsu, Lily and Strauss siblings had come to town to get daily stuff with Jet as the goods carrier. When he reached he was relieved to find that they were safe. But that soon shattered as a platoon of Edolas soldiers made their way to the unsuspecting group shoving innocent bystanders out of their way.

When they were about to attack Natsu interrupted. Jet quickly came to the group and informed them of the situation. They were shocked but soon recovered and helped Natsu fight back. As Natsu defeated a few soldiers and pushed them back he proceeded to punch another one, instead he was punched in the gut and sent back flying. Seeing this Lisanna helped him.

"We have quite the troublesome bunch here!" said a man clad in pink armor and gold chainmail, with a strange yet simple sword. "Well no matter Sugarboy is here to save the day!" he said while sporting an awkward pose and a toothy grin.

"A weirdo has appeared!" said the group in a monotone voice while sweatdropping.

"You, mage scum, have no rights to say that to me!" said Sugarboy as he commanded his troops to attack the mages who brought the weapons and put up their guards.

Then he caught a punch directed towards him. "Not quite patient, are you?" commented Sugarboy holding the fist, Natsu threw at him. Then he pushed Natsu back, who just softly landed on his feet.

"Let's make this quick!" Natsu said as he sped towards Sugarboy and threw a punch at him.

It was blocked and responded with a punch which was blocked. But the force of the punch was quite high for Natsu as he guard was shattered. Then another punch was thrown at Natsu, which connected, right in his stomach. The impact was strong and blew the air out and Natsu as he was launched back a few feet.

"You'll have to do better than that to land a hit on me pink hair!" taunted Sugarboy while tilting his finger in agreement.

After recovering from the blow Natsu noticed that close combat would only lead to a stalemate. He decided that he didn't have time to fight and concluded that it was better to escape than fight. They had the number disadvantage after all. Then he picked up a random object and threw it at Sugarboy.

What happened next shook Natsu's confidence a bit.

Sugarboy simply put his sword in front and poked the incoming thing. It turned to liquid almost instantly, leaving him totally unfazed.

Now realizing that situation is too dire to fight at all, creating an opening would be better to escape. Natsu pulled out his fire sword and assumed his battle stance. He then dashed forwards and clashed swords with Sugarboy.

While grinding swords with Sugarboy, Natsu had noticed his surroundings when he found out that everyone was one the verge of being captured. The situation turned from worse to worst.

"Everyone run away! I'll hold them back!" Natsu commanded as he pushed Sugarboy back a few feet, with all his might. Then he cleared up a path for the others to escape.

"No, we won't escape without you" said Lisanna in worried tone.

"Don't be reckless Natsu!" said Lily.

"Don't worry about me, just go!" urged Natsu as he pushed back another guard. "I'll find another way to escape".

"No Natsu, we won't leave you here, you are coming with us" said Lily in a commanding voice.

"I told you… GO! GET GOING!" Natsu roared as he held several soldiers at bay, with Sugarboy fast approaching for the attack.

Hearing Natsu getting desperate the group hesitantly decided to leave. They ran away with tears in their eyes, all of them.

"They won't escape far! Get them!" said Sugarboy pointing in their direction in another random pose.

"For that you have through me… FIRST!" said Natsu as he landed a devastating punch on the remaining soldiers, who were pushed to ground with some of them unconscious.

"Stop your current action and call for reinforcements" Sugarboy commanded in another awkwardly random pose.

"Looks like it's just you and me" said Natsu with a smirk. "I've got to put your weird ass in its place!".

"Let's see you pink haired brat!" replied Sugarboy with his sword pointed at Natsu.

* * *

 **With the escaping fairies...**

* * *

"This is not happening right?" asked Jet, teary eyed.

"We've lost another Natsu!" said Lisanna, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Even though he wasn't our Natsu, he treated us like family" said Lily, tears streaming down her cheeks too.

"He even sacrificed himself or us" added Mira. "He was a part of our family".

"He was so manly!" said Elfman crying the most of them all.

* * *

 **Back to Natsu...**

* * *

After a while the two combatants we seen breathing heavily.

"Man… you… are tough" said Natsu in between breaths.

"I could say… the same… about you pink hair" replied Sugarboy.

"Well… it seems… that I've los-" said Natsu as he was cut off when he fell unconscious due exhaustion.

"That takes care of that!" said Sugarboy as he recovered. "Now where's that damn reinforcement!".

Natsu had finally woken up when he found out that he was being dragged. But he decided against making any movement and just get information while on the move.

"Another mage in the prison, eh?" said one guard. "More than half of 'em are mages".

"Heh, another one less to take care of!" said the first one.

"Yeah he'll be put out of his misery soon!" said the third guard who was leading them.

"Oh more magic!" said the second one.

"Oh here's the place where they convert all the mages into magic" said the third one.

This piques Natsu's interest as he tries seeing the room through the corner of his eye. What he saw confused him. He saw blue crystals all over the place which looked like Gray's ice make magic, but with deeper color. it was actually magic lacrima in its crude shape. Then he felt a lot of magic emanating from the room confirming the info given by the guards.

Natsu picked up various scents of various people who were turned into those lacrima. This infuriated him. Then he picked up a familiar scent. It shocked him but the shock soon turned to rage, which he suppressed. The scent was from fairy tail which reminded him of the disappearance of the Edolas Natsu. Then he realized that, that Natsu had been turned into magic lacrima.

He just closed his eyes focusing on trying his best to contain his rage. Then he was thrown into a cell which had the same scent as before.

"Wasn't this guy the coward whom we brought in earlier. So he escaped before, eh? What a brave thing to do!" said one of the guards who recognized Natsu. "But this time there's not escape, not in here and not outside".

'Well I worry that about you guys, once I'm out' thought Natsu with a mental smirk. While resting in his cell he calmed down and noticed another magical source. This was above his head. When the guards had left Natsu peeked out of the window to find out that the place had no upper floors. He also noticed the magic that he had detected earlier was coming from a floating island up in the sky.

'Well I guess getting captured was worth it!' he concluded. Then he realized something and a smirk made its way on to Natsu's face. 'This is getting better and better'.

* * *

 **In a distant place, Edolas…**

* * *

"These conditions are favorable; I can finally end this farce soon" said a cloaked figure with numerous staffs strapped onto his back. "Fortunately or unfortunately his coming here is beneficial to me" **.**

"He can help me with this situation!" he added before disappearing into magic particles.

* * *

 **A/N: And… done. The chaps over. The adventure Natsu had in Edolas comes to an end… stay tuned for more… until then, bye bye…**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Hola amigos! I'm back again with another chapter. Hope you like the last one! From this chapter on, the focus returns to Earthland. The story here will have a few elements changed (well.. that's obvious) and some of them the same as canon. Enough of that, let's get into the chapter right away… Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy tail, Mashima-san does!**

 **Chapter 9: A fresh start**

* * *

A bright day with a bright sun, with skies as clear as a crystal of ice. This is how a day in the city known for its bustling nature, Magnolia.

Except that the said crystal seems to be melting. The bright sun turned out to more of a scorching ball of fire than a mere bright, soothing one. The people roaming about the streets groaned as the sun dried their throats. The merchants had it even worse, they had to advertise with their parched throats while sweating bullets. But since it's the city that houses the No.1 guild in all of Fiore, it's bound to be lively despite the conditions.

On the bustling streets of Magnolia, walked a girl with blonde hair complementing her fair complexion, brown eyes, a pair of big boobs, a blue and white dress with a set off silver and gold keys dangling on the side of her hip.

"Let's see what the magic store here has?" said the girl as she walked into a magic store.

"Hey old man, what's the best thing on the store for sale for magic?" she asked looking around trying to find anything out of the ordinary.

"Here have a look at this, it's one of the fancier stuff!" smiled the old man in a creepy way, while flailing a party trick like a small child.

"Boring!" said the girl as she signaled for something else.

The old man displayed a variety of stuff which, not very strangely, were very uninteresting to the girl. She had a look of disappointment on her plain expressionless face as she looked around the store trying to ignore the senile old man.

'Boring… boring… boring… Oh! What do we have here?!' thought the girl as her eyes locked onto a box with a symbol on it that she recognized immediately.

"Hey old man, do you have any gold or silver gate keys?" the girl enquired.

"I only have this one!" replied the man while showing the silver key to her.

"Old man how much is this silver key worth?" asked the girl with her face beaming brightly.

When the old man revealed the price, the girl was shocked to say the least. Looking at her purse she could see the key running away from her in her hallucination. Not wanting to let up the opportunity she decided to act. An idea stuck her head, a very simple one at that. She slowly unzipped her shirt just enough for her cleavage to be visible clearly.

"Hey old man… how much was the key worth, you said?" said the girl in a sultry tone while placing one of her legs on the table.

A little while later, suddenly the girl stomped her way out of the shop cursing in the air showing her disappointment and frustration fully.

"Damn the old fart didn't even reduce the price by a mere 10 percent!" ranted the girl. "Is my sex appeal worth just a few jewels?" she cried.

"But finally I got the key I was looking for!" she said excitedly, hugging the key. "I expanded my collection even more!".

As she was examining the key she bought she saw a crowd gather across the street. The crowd was mostly girls, no actually… only girls. They were screaming and squealing in delight.

"Hey, I want an autograph too!" said random girl 1 standing in the crowd.

"Hey, me too… me too!" said random girl 2 standing in the crowd.

"Whose autograph?" asked another girl approaching the crowd trying to investigate.

"Don't you know? It's one of the members of the team Frostbite" replied the random girl 2.

Hearing the famous and influential name, the blond girl quickly made her way to the crowd. She shoved her way to the center to take a good look at the person mentioned. There she saw a man with purple hair flaunting poses. All the girls seemed to be demanding a moment of the person. They were pushing each other for the said person's autograph.

Suddenly the girl felt her cheeks heating up, and her body acting all strange with her chest having a tingling feeling.

"Why do I feel like this? Is this what you call…? Is this person the-" she was cut off from her trance by a girl with green hair. Her appearance was quite unique. She wore a simple dress, had green hair which extended down to her lower back with pink ends. And there was a cat on her shoulder.

"Who are you?" said the girl.

"Huh? Come on! You should know about me; I am a prestige member of the team Frostbite. My name is-" replied the guy.

"Ha ha… ha ha…" laughed the girl pointing towards the guy holding her belly, with cat now flying above her head.

Suddenly she was pummeled to the ground by the nearby girls standing in the crowd. They looked at the girl and growled like wolves.

"Ouch! What was that for?" exclaimed the girl.

"You don't have the right to ridicule him just because you're good looking" replied the random girls facing her.

"Don't be so hard on her women, she may not be knowing about me!" said the man. "It's fine here's my autograph".

"Don't need it!" replied the girl shrugging the thing and turning to walk away, when suddenly her face met with the ground... again.

"Damn… what is this time?" she asked while rubbing her nose.

Looking at the gazes the random girls, the girl just got up and left. Which is when they realized that they were entranced by something. But, then they went back to their activity, screaming and squealing with delight.

The blond girl had also realized the same thing but didn't get entranced again as she knew the cause for it. She deduced it to be charm magic used to capture hearts of the opposite sex, a banned illegal magic.

She just looked around and quit the place. Then after walking around she sat on a bench and took out a copy of sorcerer weekly. The cover page starring, the one and only, Mirajane Strauss.

"Oh, Mirajane is the most beautiful of all the models... plus…" said the girl looking at the cover with admiration. "She is also a member of the No.1 guild in Fiore, Fairy Tail!" she added looking up in the sky.

"That's my favorite guild…" she continued. "How I wish to join! Will they accept me?".

"You said fairy tail? I can help you join fairy tail!" said the man from before from a bush nearby standing as though he was eavesdropping.

"What did you say? Why should I believe you?" she questioned with disgust evident in her voice. "You used charm magic to get all those women, right?".

"Ah! You got me there! But just keep it to yourself, okay?" he replied. "I just wanted a little attention".

"So… how do I join fairy tail?" she asked with a little hope in her voice.

"Just join me in my party on my ship tonight and I'll put in a good word for you!" replied the man.

"Okay, fine... whatever!" Lucy shrugged the whole thing away for fairy tail.

"Good then!" the man replied. 'The fish's in the net!' he thought.

"Oh… party? What party? I love parties!" said the green haired girl from before with a cat flying on her head in an 8-shaped path.

"Aye, me too!" said the cat.

The other two's jaws plummeted onto the floor when the heard the talking, flying cat, a blue one at that.

"Of course! All beauties are welcome!" he replied looking at the girl as though he was examining her. 'Another great specimen, this day just keeps getting better and better!'.

"Okay I'll take my leave now, see you ladies in the evening!" said the man as he left the scene in a cloud of purple magic.

"Okay that settles it I guess!" said the blond girl.

"Okay then!" said the other girl while turning around to walk away when she was stopped by the blond girl.

"Hello! I never got the chance to thank you!" said the blond girl.

"Huh? For what?" replied the other girl with a puzzled look.

"You know that guy was using charm magic to get the girls all around him!" said the girl. "I too was caught in it".

"Fortunately, you broke the spell by taking my attention off of him, when I got the chance to know what it was!" she explained.

"Oh… You're welcome, I guess!" replied girl.

"I'll treat you as my token of gratitude; ask of whatever you want!" offered the blond girl.

"Whatever, eh?" saying so the girl went into a thinking pose. Calling the cat closer and asking it to lend its ear she whispered something which made the cat jump in delight.

"Okay, I'll take you up on that offer" said the girl with a smirk.

Saying so, the girl grabbed the blond girl by her arm and dragged her to the stores nearby. She then bought whatever she could lay her hands on.

"By the way, I forgot to introduce myself! I am Lucy!" said the girl now known as Lucy. "So what's your name?".

"My name is Lily! Nice to meet you!" replied Lily.

"And I am Happy!" said the blue flying cat, raising its paw in the air.

"Nice to meet you too!" replied Lucy.

"Is that Mirajane?" asked Lily. 'Why does she shoot these pics I wonder'.

"Yes. You know her too! She is the most beautiful member of fairy tail!" replied Lucy.

Suddenly Lily had a coughing fit. 'Most beautiful!? Just because I don't star in these cheesy pics doesn't mean I'm not a contender' she complained mentally while recovering from the fit.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked worriedly.

"Ah! Never better!" replied Lily with a hint of venom in her voice.

"Moving on, I'm big fan of the mage guild, Fairy Tail!" continued Lucy. "I'm a mage too, I can do magic too!".

"Like pulling a rabbit from a hat?" asked Happy.

Those words pierced her mage ego like an arrow. "NO! no! not like that! I can summon spirits using these keys! I'm a celestial spirit mage!" said Lucy showing off her silver and gold keys.

Lily just listened to Lucy talking and praising about Fairy tail without replying and kept walking all the while buying stuff which her caught her attention. They kept piling bags of stuff on and on.

Seeing her purse empty very quickly Lucy couldn't sustain the enthusiasm she had in the beginning. By the end of the purchase Lucy and her purse were very dry and thin.

"Thanks for all the stuff" said Lily with a sweet smile, which in turn brought smile to Lucy's face as well.

"Okay then see you on the ship in the party tonight!" said Lily as she waved and left the scene.

"Okay! See you there!" replied Lucy.

* * *

 **Later that evening…**

* * *

"Okay time to go and get into fairy tail!" said Lucy to herself nervously. "I still don't know if they'll accept me or not!?".

"Guess… I'll I've to find out!" saying so she headed towards the harbor where the ship was docked.

"I don't see Lily anywhere!" she complained squinting her eyes into the distance.

'I think she isn't coming' Lucy thought after looking around for a while not finding Lily. Then Lucy just proceeded to board the ship. There were other women from before who were was aboard the ship waiting for it to leave.

After a while the ship left the port and was quickly sailing in the opposite direction creating a big distance between the port and the ship.

"Miss Lucy, I welcome you… to the VIP chamber!" said the man with purple hair as he directed Lucy to a room like a gentleman. Then he followed Lucy and brought her inside the room.

"Please take a seat!" he said in sweet voice. "Are the arrangements to your liking?".

"Hey, listen… I don't care about that, just tell me how to get into fairy tail" she said in a stern voice. "I'm not here to be your girl!".

"Oh please don't misunderstand. That apart, have a drink!" the man said offering a glass of red wine.

'Fine for now I gue… ss…' her thoughts were interrupted when she brought the drink closer to her mouth. The smell it gave off almost made Lucy faint. Realizing that a sleeping drug was mixed into the drink she took action.

"Hey what's the meaning of this?" she said. "What are trying to pull? Why is there a sleeping drug mixed in that?".

This shocked the man a little but he quickly recovered and a creepy AF smirk made its way onto his face. "Well, well… looks like missy found out my little secret!" said the man with a different tone. "Well… no matter. You finding me out won't make a difference at all".

"So you've kidnapped me and all the other girls?" Lucy questioned. "What are you trying to do to us?".

"Well now that the cat's out of the bag, let's empty it fully!" he replied. "I will sell you off to the local slave market. And a beauty like you will fetch me a good price! Too bad the other one didn't come."

"Now that you've heard this… I can't let you leave!" he said. "I'll tie you up and the others. MEN, NOW!".

"Damn it! I got trapped!" said Lucy.

"Hey did you guys forget about me!" Lily's voice was heard from a cloud of smoke as the roof of the wooden room collapsed with her standing on top of the rubble.

'How did she get here?' were the thoughts of both Lucy and the man.

"I had some hope of enjoying a party, it's been a long time!" said Lily with a hint disappointment in her voice. "But you crashed that too!".

"But, I guess you brought up another way to entertain me!" Lily said while crackling her knuckles. "Time for a beatdown!".

"MEN! ATTACK AND CAPTURE HER TOO!" commanded the man pointing in Lily's direction.

The men all charged at once, when Lily used " **Razor Shards** " sending out razor sharp ice crystals which cut and damaged the approaching men pushing them back and putting them on edge.

'Ice magic! She can use Ice magic!' Lucy concluded.

"What the hell are you doing? You can't handle one girl?" complained the man looking at the men with disgust.

"Time to end this!" " **God Hand** " shouted Lily as she gathered magic and slammed her hand on the floor.

The men braced themselves for impact thinking too much about the 'melodramatic' spell casting. But… nothing happened.

"Wait? What? Why?" said Lily who was utterly confused as were the others.

"There is no water in the wood on a ship!" reminded Happy immediately shocking Lily who froze after listening to that.

"What are waiting for idiots?! Attack her!" the man commanded. The men at once followed up, but with weapons this time.

"Damn… hands, I guess…" said Lily as she brought her hands in front and got into a fighting stance. As soon she brought her guard up she slammed an approaching man on the floor breaking the wood beneath.

"Happy… take Lucy and go!" Lily said looking at Happy from the corner of her eye while punching and dodging the incoming attacks. "I'll hold them off!".

"Okay." he replied while grabbing Lucy by the back of her shirt and flying out of the hole in the roof.

As soon as they were out, "Will she be alright?" Lucy asked worriedly.

"Oh, she'll be fine" Happy replied in a nonchalant manner almost instantly.

After flying for a while Lucy noticed she was swaying too much. "Hey what's the matter cat?" Lucy asked.

"Lucy is it just me or are all the girls heavy?" Happy asked with look that showed that he was struggling.

"What did you say?" she asked in a demonic voice. "You wanna die?". Calling others heavy is fine, but calling Lucy heavy is just too much, unforgivable!

"Hey, Lucy!" he called out to her once more.

"What is it this time cat?" she asked in an annoyed tone.

"Do you know how to swim?" he asked her.

"Why? And where is suddenly coming from?" she replied with another question.

"Because… I've run of magic!" Happy stated, at the end of which his wings disappeared stopping their horizontal flight and instantly starting their negative vertical flight.

"Stupid CAAAAaaaat...!" was all that was heard when the two fell into the water with a big splash.

"Lucy you're so heavy, that you even splashed the whole sea" happy commented annoying the blond even further.

"SHUT UP! Ugh!" she struggled against the waves of water. Then she tried to get to her keys. After much effort she finally got one.

" **Open Gate of the Mermaid: Aquarius!** " shouted Lucy with swing her key and plunging it into the water.

A wave of water suddenly rose up and from it emerged a beautiful mermaid with a water jug in her hand. "Why the hell did you disturb me?" she yelled at Lucy scaring her.

"Oh a fish! Tasty!" said Happy excitedly with fish in his eyes as her looked at Aquarius.

"Ignore him! Aquarius, I need your help! Wash that ship ashore!" Lucy commanded Aquarius.

"Tch! Don't command me!" she replied clicking her tongue.

"Hey, don't Tch me! listen to me!" Lucy retorted.

"Tch! Whatever! I was gonna do that anyways!" muttered Aquarius as she gathered her magic in her jug and let out a burst of water, a very large one like a tidal wave.

The wave pushed the ship and the two tiny ants along with to the shore crashing it there, destroying the ship completely.

"HEY! Were you trying to kill me, too?" Lucy asked in a panicked manner.

"Che! Missed by that much!" Aquarius muttered while looking disappointed.

"What? Return… Aquarius!" Lucy commanded.

"Fine! At least, I'll be away from you" she replied. "I'll enjoy with my boyfriend… BOYFRIEND!" stressing exactly on the 'boyfriend' part. Saying so Aquarius disappeared, leaving behind golden magic particles.

"Ah! Too bad I couldn't eat that fish; It looked delicious too!" Happy said looking at Lucy.

"Ah! I almost forgot about Lily! Is she okay?" Lucy said worriedly looking at the ship wreck that now lay waste on the harbor.

From the kicked up smoke emerged Lily, the men and the main antagonist. "Hey, Bora! This is crazy we didn't know anything about capturing magic chicks!".

"Shut up, idiots! Don't call me by my real name!" he whispered to them frantically.

"Hey, purple haired bastard! You know... bad mouthing fairy tail is bad already…" she said in a scary voice while cracking her knuckles. "But using that name to commit crimes is just… unforgivable".

"Heh! Like you can do anything about it!" Bora replied with a smirk. "Get her!".

"Oh, I can do lots... like this!" " **God Hand** " she shouted slamming her hands on the ground.

Everyone, taking into the account the last failure, rushed forward without paying any attention to the ground. Suddenly a gigantic hand made of crystal clear ice emerged from the ground. It headed towards the incoming men and hit them. The first few unsuspecting ones were knocked far into the air after which they crashed into the nearby buildings.

The others behind them got alerted to the new situation and put up their guards. The hand didn't stop and headed towards Bora, who after looking at it readied his own magic. Then he threw a fire ball at the ice hoping to melt it. It connected and created steam. But when that steam cleared, the ice looked unharmed. So Bora immediately dodged it.

"H-how?" Bora was shocked beyond belief.

"You know a member of Frostbite isn't so weak if I remember correctly!" she said, while collecting her magic slowly. "You're pathetic!".

All the while Lucy was amazed to see the battle prowess of Lily. Then a gust of wind blew by and lift the sleeve covering the right bicep of Lily revealing a red fairy tail guild mark. Looking at Happy she noticed a green guild mark on his back too, just below the rucksack. Then she realized something which caused her eyes to widen in amazement.

"What did you say?" Bora replied to the comment.

Lily didn't reply. She just looked at Happy and signaled him. "Happy, NOW!".

"Duck!" Happy yelled to Lucy, who immediately complied doing the said action.

" **Instant freeze: Blizzard** " muttered Lily releasing her magic in one go, causing a strong blizzard filled with sharp ice shards to blow like a tornado picking up the other men and Bora.

The blizzard blew the men in random directions, most of them crashing into nearby buildings, all cut and bruised severely.

Suddenly a loud sound of a large number footsteps was heard. Turning to the source revealed the Rune knights who had come to save the day.

"Happy let's get outta here!" Lily panicked. She also pulled along Lucy by her hand.

"Hey, where are you taking me?" Lucy asked.

"Huh? You wanna join fairy tail, right?" Lily replied. "Then that's out destination!" she continued with a bright smile.

Lucy also cheered up listening to the statement and followed Lily with a hope filled bright, enthusiastic face.

* * *

 **Later... that day…**

* * *

"Phew! Lost 'em! That was the longest I've sprinted in my entire life!" said Lucy as she trying to catch her breath. Though strangely Lily was completely fine with the running, there's a secret to that.

"So, you ready?" Lily asked while looking at Lucy and studying her facial expression.

"I don't know if they'll accept me!" she said nervously.

'Ah! This brings back memories! The first time we came to the guild hall!' Lily thought as a smile made its way onto her face, completing her beautiful, peaceful expression.

"Okay, let's get you enrolled!" Lily stated signaling Lucy to cheer up and follow her.

"Aye!" Happy added to Lily's statement cheering up Lucy further.

Lucy did the same after letting out a heavy breath calming herself down and reducing her nervousness. Lily pushed the doors open and walked inside followed by Lucy and Happy. What Lucy saw next was so astonishing that all her nervousness was washed away. A hall full of people sitting on tables, talking and drinking. The atmosphere seemed so laid back that anyone new would instantly feel at home.

"Follow me to the bar! I'll help you out" said Lily pointing to the bar, then proceeding to go to the bar herself. Lucy complied and did the same. Happy flew away then just sat on a table and started nibbling on a fish. Upon reaching the bar Lucy saw the person she admired, Mirajane Strauss.

"Hey Mira help her out with guild joining details!" said Lily as she called out to Mira, while pointing at Lucy.

"Wow! It's Mirajane Strauss! The real deal!" said Lucy in a squeaky voice when Mira arrived. Mira just gave her a smile.

"So, you wanna join fairy tail?" asked Mira politely. "Just wait here while I fetch master!".

Mira asking politely was the after effect of Natsu's 'death'. Everyone was shaken up, and real hard. The ones most affected were the people who had seen Natsu's death and his family, especially Lily. Mira had lost her confidence as a mage and so she distanced herself from doing any quests and helped in the guild bar. Lisanna and Lily were the ones who decided to get stronger for the sake of the others and mostly themselves. The pain of losing a dear one was too great to risk another time. Erica was mostly the same, because she was an adult. Elfman also had one thing screwed into his mind, 'protect family at all costs'. Most importantly Gray had lost his stripping habit… almost.

When Mira had left, another girl with silver hair and a half-naked boy with raven hair approached Lucy.

"So, you're the new member, eh?" the boy asked.

"Yes! My name is Lucy and I wanna join fairy tail" Lucy replied nervously avoiding looking at him directly.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Lisanna!" Lisanna joined in the conversation.

"And I'm Gray!" Gray continued the conversation still half-naked.

"So… how did you know about fairy tail?" asked Lisanna.

"I've always admired this mage guild since I was a child" replied Lucy with a smile.

"So, Lily brought you here, eh? You must be good then!" said Gray in a matter-of-fact tone. "Speaking of which? Where is she?".

Lucy just pointed behind Gray, who just turned around to see a demonic figure behind him. He instantly froze up.

"So, your lazy ass has been wasting time here while I go out and do missions for you!" said Lily, having a scary smile, in a venom filled voice. "So much for a lazy perverted bum of a teammate!".

"Uh huh! I wasn't wasting my time! I was… and I'm not a pervert, don't give others the wrong idea!" Gray retaliated because he couldn't find a good excuse to escape the situation.

"By the way, there was an imposter impersonating you and smuggling girls to sell as slaves" said Lily with a straight face.

"Gray, I never knew you were that kind of a person" said Lisanna with her tongue sticking out a little bit.

"WHAT? Where is the bastard? I wanna pound him to pieces!" Gray replied with anger.

"Hold your horses, already done!" said Lily while sighing. "If you had come with me you could have thrashed the guy!".

"So, he is a member of the team Frostbite? And you called him a teammate. Which means…" Lucy realized that she had been with a member of Frostbite all along. "…you are Liliana Dragneel! Fairy Tail's most powerful ice mage!".

"Hey! I'm just as strong as she is!" pouted Gray.

"Oh! Are you, perverted idiot?" Lily commented.

"Wanna find out?" Gray countered.

"Gray don't start a fight with her you know how it'll end!" warned Lisanna. The warning was completely ignored, just like always.

In the meanwhile, Mira had returned. "Master will be here shortly!" she said to Lucy. Then she turned towards the possible guild brawl.

"Sure! A warm up is just what I need!" replied Lily clasping her fingers into fists.

Gray then proceeded to punch Lily. Using Gray's momentum against himself, Lily threw him right into the middle of the guild where the other people were relaxing. Gray crashed into Elfman, one of the hotheads of the guild. Not liking his peace being interrupted, he punched Gray back to his origin. Instead, he crashed into some other people. Not wanting another thrashing Gray dodged the incoming attack which made its way to the remaining group of people. Slowly the whole guild joined in and an all-out war broke out with fists and furniture flying in random directions minus the magic part.

"Uh...? Shouldn't you be stopping them!" said Lucy worriedly dodging all the incoming projectiles, which in turn hit Mira. "Waah! Sorry!".

"It's fine. This is a rare sight these days. In fact, this is good for them!" Mira replied while standing still, receiving all the attacks physical or verbal, mostly physical though.

Then Gray was sent flying out of the brawl area, after which he crashed into the bar. He emerged unscathed and stark naked. "Miss may I have your underwear?" he asked like a gentleman.

"Pervert!" Lucy shrieked while kicking Gray back into the fray.

"What's with the ruckus? Stop destroying the guild furniture!" said a loud voice which sounded like a giant.

Then came a large hand which was about to smash Gray, when he dodged… almost. He hit an Ice wall and was trapped and then boom. When the hand retreated a little, Gray's body was found entangled with the rubble. He was alive and kicking though.

Then the person, to whom the hand belonged to, revealed himself. He was gigantic 'like a giant'. Lucy could only gape at the figure. 'He's huge. Will he take a weakling like me? Oh my god!' was the only thing revolving in Lucy's mind.

Then the figure started shrinking in size and finally became into an old man who was half of Lucy's height. 'Huh? What the heck was that then!?' were Lucy's immediate thoughts.

"So you wanna join fairy tail?" he asked. Then he extended a hand and suddenly groped Lucy's butt.

"Kyaaah! Pervert!" shrieked Lucy as she hit Makarov back on instinct.

"Quite the fiery one, eh? Mira get the guild stamp and place a mark with the color and location of her choice!" Makarov said with a smile after getting back up while rubbing his cheek. "Welcome to fairy tail, my name is Makarov Dreyar!".

"So where do you want the mark and what color?" Mira asked while holding the stamp in her hand.

"Here and pink" said Lucy while pointing at the back of her hand.

"There! You are now officially a member of fairy tail!" stated Mira with a warm smile. "Once again welcome to our family. I'm Mirajane Strauss, nice to meet you!".

"Same here, I'm Lucy and am glad to be a part of the family!" Lucy replied excitedly. She then ran over to Lily and showed off her guild mark. "Now I'm a member of fairy tail as well!".

"Great!" she commented when suddenly she teared up. Not wanting to show her 'weakness' she just turned and walked away.

Totally confused Lucy walked back to the bar to enquire. "Why did Lily tear up when I showed my guild mark?" Lucy asked to Mira.

Mira thought for a while without answering. Then she muttered "Oh… it's that day, huh? Well… everyone has a great sorrow in their lives, including me…".

"Huh?" Lucy said not understanding what Mira just said.

"Oh… its nothing. She must be happy! That's all!" Mira tried reasoning.

"Okay, then" Lucy replied deciding not to pry further into the matter.

Makarov then made an announcement gathering the guild members' attention. He then hopped to the second floor. He pulled out some papers and after slowly looking at them his eyes teared up.

"You brats have been causing so much destruction in your wake that the council loathes us terribly" he cried while crocodile tears flowed down his face.

"But no matter, because those fools up there don't know that a mage cannot grow if he is restricted. You are the future of magic and so let loose once in a while. Because… we are Fairy Tail!" he said while throwing away the papers in hand and raising his index finger in the signature fairy tail symbol.

Seeing that the guild roared with happiness. Everyone's mood was uplifted. Lucy could feel the positivity the guild let out. She felt she would just right in a place like this, unlike her past.

"So let's party all day!" Makarov announced, after which he turned to go into his office. 'Why did I go ahead with that speech of mine, now there'll be even more paper work to deal with. Me and my big kind hearted mouth' he thought which brought shivers down his spine.

The day ended with Lucy getting acquainted with the other members of the guild as well. She got to know many others and there were others left to be known who were absent. One particular member of team shadow gear to an instant liking to Lucy, it was Levy Mcgarden. The feeling was actually mutual so a friendship between the two was sparked immediately.

* * *

 **Later…**

* * *

Lucy had already found a decent house with a relatively easy-to-pay rent. After everyone had dispersed Lucy decided to rest for the day, so she headed home, where she was greeted by unexpected guests. Lily and Gray had also made themselves at home.

"This is a pretty cozy apartment!" commented Lily.

"Hey! You're violating my privacy here!" Lucy said in an annoyed tone. "And how did you find my apartment?".

"What's the privacy for? We're family now you know!" said Gray. The other question was however totally ignored.

Then a screeching sound was heard. Lucy turned towards the source to find out it was Happy, the cat with a fish in his mouth.

"Gah! Hey! Stupid cat, don't sharpen your nails on my walls!" Lucy yelled pulling Happy away from the wall.

"Get out of my house and let me rest!" screamed Lucy pointing towards the exit.

The three were literally pushed out of the door. "Good night!" saying so Lucy slammed the door shut on their faces.

"Jeez, so stingy. Well… fine time to go home, anyways!" said Lily with a little disappointment. "Okay Gray, good night… see ya tomorrow!".

"Yeah, good night. Take care!" he replied back while heading towards his home. Lily also did the same.

* * *

 **The next day…**

* * *

Lucy had come early in the morning to find the place almost empty except Mira and Lisanna. she came up to the bar and enquired about the others.

"So you're here early?" Lucy asked. "Where are the others?".

"Yeah… we usually come early because we have clean the bar and all" replied Mira.

"You're early too, what's the plan?" Lisanna asked Lucy with a smirk.

"Nah, I just thought since it was my first day and all, I'll drop in early!" Lucy replied.

"Well… the others will be arriving shortly! Have a seat" said Lisanna before going back to cleaning the bar with Mira.

Lucy waited for a while after which the guild members started pouring in one by one. Most of the members that she was acquainted with had arrived with some new faces as well. Proceeding to greet everyone she went around introducing herself to the remaining people she hadn't met. Master Makarov was also present, in his pajamas though, sitting and drinking near the bar chatting with Mira and Lisanna.

Then suddenly a kid came stomping his way into the guild and went up to Makarov. "Where's my father?" the kid asked almost on the verge of tears.

"Go home and drink milk or something, kid!" Makarov replied. "He is a fairy tail mage! He can take care of himself!".

Hearing the words caused the kid to burst out in tears. "You jerk!" he yelled while punching Makarov in the face, knocking him over before running out in crying.

"Ah, what a brat!" Makarov complained.

"Master, you shouldn't have been such a jerk" said Lily as she caught Gray by his shoulder and dragged him out with her.

"Don't do anything stupid, Lily!" warned Mira. "Lucy go with them and keep an eye on them".

Lucy followed Lily and Gray out of the guild hall. "Hey, where are you going?" she asked to Lily.

"To get Romeo's dad back!" Lily replied.

"Hey Romeo, I'll be back soon so calm down, okay?" Lily comforted the crying Romeo.

"Okay" he replied while wiping his tears, then cheering up.

'She looks so motherly' Lucy thought.

"Let's go, Gray… Lucy!" Lily ordered.

"To where?" both Lucy and Gray asked in unison.

"Mount Hakobe, that's where Macao went for his mission of killing Vulcans!" replied Lily.

* * *

 **A/N: That's it for the chapter guys. The upcoming chapters will be similar, (mostly) canon plot with slight changes to the story here and there. Erza and Erica will feature shortly. Well then, I will see you guys in the next chapter… bye… bye…**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Hey guys, it's me again, GreatDragonSlayer. Back with another chapter… this time with few more changes to the story. Some fancy additions here and there and voila! Enjoy…**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy tail.**

 **Chapter 10: World of fairy fun**

* * *

"Mount HAKOBE? VULKANS?" replied Lucy utterly shocked and terrified after hearing Lily casually declare their destination.

"Uh… I think I should take the back alley" Lucy said as she thought that her first mission already was signing a death warrant.

"Nope. You ain't going anywhere, missy" stated lily as she glared daggers on Lucy forcing her to nod her head in agreement.

"What a pain!" was all Gray muttered when he walked alongside a pair of girls, one excited to heaven and one scared to death.

"Do you really think this is good idea?" Lucy asked nervously.

"Of course it is!" Lily replied. "Moreover it is good training for you for future quests".

"Lucy, you are releasing some kind of juices!" said happy while pointing to a drop of sweat that trickled down her temple.

"I'm sweating dammit. Don't make it sound creepy!" Lucy retaliated with a logical answer. Then a gust of wind shook her body from the inside. It suddenly became so cold that she had to constantly rub her palms and biceps to prevent her from shivering too much.

Looking at the other two, a thought came into Lucy's mind 'Are these two trying to show off or are they really unaffected by the cold'. The other two walked nonchalantly up the increasing slope, completely ignoring the freezing winds blowing through the air.

"Lucy you are weird!" stated Happy.

"Says the cat who talks and flies!" countered Lucy.

"Hey guys, does that shadow in the distance look like a human?" asked Gray as he pointed in a random direction where the silhouette of human like form was visible.

"Yeah, but it's too large for a human! Wait its growing in size!" said Lily while panicking at a random phenomenon. "Why is growing in size?".

Then after a very small amount of time a gorilla sized creature burst out of the snowy winds and looked at the three people with bloodshot eyes. It was a snow Vulcan with white fur and a craze for women.

"Human woman!" he yelled as he looked at Lucy, creeping the said girl out very much.

"Kyaaah!" shouted Lucy as the Vulcan picked her up and started running away in the direction from which it approached.

"What the hell was that?" Lily asked completely confused.

"That was a vulcan Lily!" informed Happy.

"Gah! I know that. Forget that, let's get Lucy first!" she said as she sprinted towards the direction of the vulcan.

After running for some distance Lily, Gray and Happy happened upon a cave. Believing it to be the vulcan habitat they entered it… with caution. Their hunch was right which was confirmed by the fact that Lucy was sitting on an elevated slab of ice completely frozen due to shock.

"Lucy, you're alright!" said Lily, as she ran up to Lucy, followed by Gray and Happy.

"Uh… huh!" Lucy replied in a monotone voice with an expressionless face and a distant look in her eyes. She had never been so frightened. It was amplified by the fact that she was captured by a vulcan, a perverted one at that.

"It's fine. We're here! Let's take that thing down!" reassured Lily.

"Hey! We got company!" said Gray which shifted the attention of the two girls in Gray's direction. They noticed the vulcan were now mentally prepared to face them.

"Gray you know what to do!" Lily hinted with a smirk. Gray nodded back understanding the indication.

Then he stepped in the ice below and readied his magic. Then he placed his second foot on the ice and " **Ice-make: L-** " he was cut off as he slipped and fell and slid across the distance and crashed into a wall, bringing down snow on himself.

"What a useless idiot!" Lily said as she too stepped on the ice and experienced the same fate as Gray.

"Speak for yourself stupid!" said Gray as he dug he way through the ice.

"Are you alright Lily?" Lucy yelled across the cave in worry. All she could here was the bickering of two pissed off fools. 'So much for being ice mages. Being looked down by their own element!' she thought in disappointment.

"That looked like fun! Can I try that too?" asked Happy.

"What did you say, you idiot?" Lily roared.

"I said what I said stupid!" he replied with equal intensity.

"I'll help" Lucy intervened trying to break the quarrel. " **Open Gate of the Bull: Taurus** " she summoned a spirit using her golden key. A gigantic, axe wielding, cow appeared from a cloud of golden magic particles.

"Oh! That cow can help us fight that vulcan!" said Lily and Gray in unison.

"Taurus. Defeat that despicable vulcan!" she commanded the cow.

"Anything for Lucy's boobs and body!" replied the cow as it picked the axe and brought it over its shoulder.

'Another pervert had appeared' thought the ice mages and Happy, witnessing the scene from the end of the cave.

As it stepped on the ice with its hoofs, it too suffered the same fate as the ice mages. After recovering from the tragic fall and getting up besides Lily, Taurus felt a strange enthusiasm enter his body. He looked at Lily with eyes filled to the brim with lust, noticing which sent shivers down the spine of the said girl.

"F-Focus o-on the e-enemy!" she said while covering herself up because she felt the perverseness of the cow itself would violate her.

"Anything for this young lady's body, which is actually better than Lucy's" Taurus said with the last part coming out very silently. Saying so, the cow again started charging towards the vulcan, falling mid-way and ending up at the far end of the cave, knocked out.

'That was completely uneventful. I never knew my spirits to be so useless!' Lucy cried mentally.

Finally bored of the stupidity displayed by the people there, the vulcan made its move. He roared and moved quickly. He grabbed Lucy again, sped towards Lily and grabbed her too this time. Happy chased after the vulcan in hopes of catching hold of either one of the girls. Gray noticing this and not being able to do anything made his blood boil. But then he calmed himself down and gave a thought about the situation. He realized that the vulcan was actually skating over the ice. Then his eyes caught attention of a crack at the place where Taurus had fallen before. A smirk made its way onto his face.

"Uwaaaah! No! Even I'm captured by the perverted vulcan" cried Lily not liking the current situation.

"You know, for ice mages the two of you were awfully useless here!" said Lucy bluntly piercing Lily's ego.

"Uh… uhh… I-I can't argue over that!" admitted Lily hesitantly.

"You can use your magic here you know!" Lucy suggested.

At the corner of her eye she saw Gray ready with his magic. Gray winked at her. Understanding the indication, " **Ice Gauntlets** " Lily cast a spell over herself creating solid ice gloves. Then she hit vulcan on its back with great force, disorienting the creature.

" **Ice-make: Lance** " yelled Gray as he launched several chains of ice towards the vulcan. The creature just dodged the lances, but Gray still had the smirk on his face with widened even more when the attack missed its target. The vulcan had not realized that its mobility had been reduced and conversely increased for the others.

Then Gray ran forward with great speed with one of his hands in the form of a fist. Reacting to that the Vulcan moved forward and then tripped and fell. Realizing that the cracks have completely reduced his speed the vulcan got up and was about to move when…

"Lily… Lucy… off NOW!" yelled Gray as he leaped into the air and delivered a devastating punch to the vulnerable Vulcan's face. The vulcan was stunned and so it tripped over another crack. Before it could hit the ground…

" **God Hand** " Lily chanted slamming her hands down on the floor. A fist made of ice emerged from the floor and punched the vulcan into the roof. As it was falling another fist punched it towards Taurus' direction.

"My turn! This is payback! Taurus knock the vulcan out!" Lucy commanded extending her hands out.

"Yes, Miss Lucy, moo-st certainly!" replied the spirit as he flexed his muscles. He then launched the vulcan back with strong lariat lodging the vulcan into the wall.

Observing no movements from the vulcan they gathered around it. "Time for some answer…rs!" said Lily as she moved forward pausing in between to notice the vulcan shrinking in size. After the shrinking was over the three there were shocked, including Happy.

"Oh! This is… confusing!" said Gray. "The guy was possessed by the damn monkey!".

"Eh?! This is Macao?" asked Lucy shocked to see the guy visible after the possession of the vulcan had gone away.

"Well that solves it!" said Lily. "Good thing we came here, phew".

"Ugh! Where the hell am I?" asked Macao as he slowly regained consciousness.

"In the vulcan's cave" replied Happy.

"Oh! So you guys came here to save my pathetic ass!" said Macao sounding utterly disappointed.

"Hey old man, you did great actually!" said Lily.

"Really? I beat 19 of these but the 20th one got me, heh!" replied Macao mockingly.

"Fine, lets go back. Your son's awaiting your arrival!" stated Lily with a smile.

"Yeah" Macao replied.

Then the three helped the man out of the wall and slung him over his shoulder. Slowly but steadily they brought him back to the front of the fairy tail gate where Romeo was waiting. When he noticed the three people coming back with his father his face lit up like a candle. He rushed forward with excitement.

"How are you, dad?" Romeo asked. "Sorry this is all my fault. My stupid promise".

"Hey little man, you should be proud of your dad!" Macao replied. "Has anyone of your friends' dads defeated 19 vulcan's? Ask 'em this question and see their reaction."

"Ha ha that would be incredible!" replied Romeo with tears in his eyes.

Then the father and son duo slowly and steadily walked towards their home and disappeared out of sight. Looking at the scene Lucy heart felt so warm when she looked at the familial reunion. Then she looked at Lily and found that she had spaced out and was looking at the sky with a hopeful expression.

"Hey! Time to go!" said Gray, snapping Lily out of her gaze.

"Y-yeah, let's go!" she stuttered as she lead the way.

Gray narrowed his eyes while looking at her. Then after letting out a sigh he followed, soon after which Lucy did the same. The expression what Lily had made Lucy think as to why did Lily tear up when Lucy showed her guild mark to her. Not giving it much thought but storing it in the corner of her corner of memory for future use she nodded sideways and brought a smile on her face.

A little while later the trio arrived at the guild and had settled down at the bar for some refreshments. After all they had to do a ton of work. Lisanna was the first one to approach them.

"So… done with your task?" Lisanna asked Gray.

"Yeah, one hell of a task!" Gray replied as he massaged his neck.

"You don't say!" she replied. "So what would you like?".

"One glass of ice whiskey!" Gray replied.

"Make that two!" Lily butted in.

"Coming right up!" said Lisanna as she went away to prepare for the order.

Next Lucy came up to the bar and took a random seat. Mira was the one who was standing near her. Finding it an opportunity, Lucy called out to Mira. In the pretext of ordering something she asked the critical question.

"Hey! Mira… I've been wondering…" Lucy hinted slowly. "Why did Lily tear up when I showed her my guild mark?".

"Ah! That… It was bound to come up sometime, might as well answer it now" muttered Mira. "This happened four years ago".

Saying so Mira described the whole S-class mission and how the four people became three at the end of the mission because of one small mistake. Lucy was almost brought to tears when she heard the story.

"So, Natsu Dragneel died protecting you guys!" she recollected. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. Must have brought bad memories".

"Oh no, it's fine. I'm over it all" Mira replied with a smile which subtly hinted sorrow.

Then somewhere in the guild a talk about how the request board was full of requests. So much so that there were a high number of special requests as well.

"Hey these requests pay well too!" a part of broken up talk was heard loudly.

Lucy suddenly started to panic, a little sweat made its way on to her forehead. One of the worst nightmares of her current days was going to be realized today. She was mentally biting her nails, but externally her expression showed a lot of tension.

"Lucy you releasing juices again!" pointed out Happy.

"Shut up stupid cat!" Lucy shot back embarrassed, which added to her mental stress.

"What's the matter Lucy?" Mira asked.

"I-I have to pay my rent today and I don't have enough money!" Lucy said as her panicked face turned even more panicked.

"Oh dear!" said Mira with one of her hands on her mouth. "Maybe you could do a request and earn some jewels!" she suggested.

"Okay" replied Lucy while violently shaking her head in agreement.

"Take Lily with you, she can help you" Mira added.

Lucy then went to Lily and asked her to accompany her to the request board. "Lily help me please… I need money to pay my rent! Help me pick a request!" Lucy begged.

"Okay, let's see!" muttered Lily as she was scanning through the request flyers quickly. Most of the jobs pinned up there were pretty boring which deeply disinterested Lily.

Then she bumped into Nab who was trying to find his 'perfect job'. Lily was a little annoyed about the fact that Nab always stays near the board but never picks up a job. She hastily picked a flyer and without reading it she pushed it onto Nab.

"So this, it's perfect for y-wait… it's not" said Lily as she changed her speech midway after her glance fell on the flyer. She had a placid expression on her face and quickly retracted her arm and held the flyer tightly in her hand. Mentally she was having a very different expression, a more sadistic one directed towards Lucy.

"This the best job for us!" said Lily. "Gray get moving already, we have a mission to do!".

"Huh? Now? What about rest?" asked Gray from his slumped position. "I'll pass-I'll go!" squeaked Gray as a deadly gaze behind him was piercing his soul.

"Good" said Lily as her expression changed back to normal.

'Wow… Gray is totally under control!' concluded Lucy as she looked at the scared boy who hurriedly got ready to leave for the mission.

"When should we leave?" said Gray as soon as he assembled with nothing for preparation and stood near Lily with boredom written all over his face.

"Okay, all done let's leave!" said Lily gleefully ignoring the molding mage.

* * *

 **A little while later, on the streets of Magnolia…**

* * *

"So what is the job about?" asked Lucy excitedly.

"We have to find a book for someone from a place…" replied Lily with a very stoic expression.

"Oh! Okay so what kind of book?" Lucy continued with another question.

"We'll know that when we get there" replied Lily already bored of the conversation.

"Whe-" Lucy got cut off by Gray as he placed on her shoulder. When she looked at Gray he was nodding at her to stop.

"One more thing… Keep your guard up near Lily" Gray warned. "I smell trouble from that witch".

"Huh?" Lucy replied with a confused expression.

"You have been warned!" Gray replied with a slippery tongue.

'Okay, that was totally uncalled for. Oh well!' Lucy shrugged the felling off along with the warning.

After a little while of walking they reached the place or rather luxurious mansion which had posted the request flyer.

"Wow…! What a place!?" said Lucy admiring the mansions size, while also remembering her own mansion. "The reward must be high!".

"It is! Two hundred thousand jewels!" informed Lily as she held the paper in front of Lucy's face.

Looking at the money, Lucy felt as though her worries until the next month were gone. "Let's go!" she exclaimed excitedly.

Stepping into the mansion the three were amazed at the intricate design the house had. As they were walking and gazing they were greeted by a person, an old man, dressed in a butler suit.

"Have you people come for the request flyer?" asked the man humbly.

"Yes!" replied Lily. Pulling up the flyer and handing it over to the old man.

"Please follow me this way!" he hinted as he walked down the hallway and stood near a room. He then said something through the door, after knocking and the door opened. From that room came a couple who like they were in their early fifties. The couple had a rather apologetic look as opposed to their status as noted by Lily.

"I see that the three of you have come to complete the request" said the man.

"Hey don't forget about me!" reminded happy as he flew into sight from behind Lily.

The man was stunned to see a blue flying, talking cat with a sense of individuality. Then with the same face he looked at Lily, confirming her thoughts on a particular matter.

"Please ignore him!" Lily said. "So what exactly is the request?".

"I would like you to destroy a book!" he said with hints of anger in his voice. "It's this one. And it is in possession of the Duke of Everlue!".

"Okay" replied Lily with a puzzled look plastered to her face. "Honestly, two hundred thousand jewel is a bit too much for such a simple task".

"Uhh… you're mistaken!" said the man. "It's been raised to two million jewels".

"What?" was the reply of the three mages as their jaws hit rock bottom. Lucy started having hallucinations of a happy life and Lily on the other hand had some on shopping.

"Consider the job done!" said Gray, being the first to snap out of the 'good' shock, snapping the two girls out of their dreamlands as well.

Saying so the three set out to complete the job. On the way they were discussing the possible means to divide the money and the aftermath of the earnings. Gray couldn't care less about the money and so he walked forward with happy flying besides him, talking about food.

When the had reached their destination, they saw a big mansion, quite possibly bigger than the one they were in previously. Lily noticed a small notice put up on the gate saying something about hiring maid, and blonde ones only. An evil smirk made its way onto her face as she moved her gaze towards Lucy.

"Umm… Lucy since this is your first mission for training you'll go first!" saying so Lily thrust a packed set of dress against Lucy. And with a gentle push she indicated to change.

When Lucy was done she was shocked and stunned to find herself in a maid costume. "Hey! What the meaning of this?" she questioned Lily, who just a lifted a finger towards the 'Maid Wanted; Blondes only' sign.

'Ugh… this is not what I had planned for my first request. This is not good. This is really bad!' thought Lucy as she realized that she was caught in a trap, a well-placed one. 'I should have heeded Gray's warning!'.

'Of course this is why you were included in the first place! Makes things easy' were Lily's mental reply, as though she read Lucy's mind, to her chaotic statement.

"Okay. Mission start!" said Lily quietly as she took Lucy to walk up to the mansion's front gate.

Then Lily rang the bell and waited for the response from the owner of the mansion. Soon enough the said person came out. Looking at him, the first thing that came to Lucy's and Lily's mind was 'Disgusting!'. Why? Because he was surrounded by maids, which looked no different than gorillas. With the one which the opened the gate standing in the front just behind her master.

"So what business do you have here? Do not waste my time. I'm a busy man!" stated the Duke in an arrogant tone.

"I have come to join your service as a maid!" said Lucy as she mustered up all her courage to proceed with mission that is, infiltrate the mansion.

"A blonde maid?" said man questioningly as he scanned Lucy for flaws.

Lucy stood in her most confident pose trying her best to charm the Duke to accept her into the mansion. She was sure that her body and personality should definitely get her the job… because she compared herself with the other maids present. Poor Lucy had one coming for her as the Duke expressed his thoughts on the matter.

"I don't think you quite fit the description!" said the man.

"How so?" asked Lucy as she couldn't believe her ears for the first time.

"You see; I want a beautiful blonde maid!" he replied. "But with such a frail ( **PRICK** ) and ugly ( **PRICK** ) body and a face that depicts weakness ( **PRICK** ) you definitely don't hope to work for me".

"This… here, is beauty ( **PRICK** )" said the man as he presented the maid standing immediately behind him. "Now scram!" saying so the man went back into his mansion leaving behind two lifeless bodies.

Both Lily and Lucy were shattered at the statement made by 'insolent fool'.

"HA HA HA HA!" Lmao'd Gray and Happy as he saw the scene unfold with the two 'ugly, frail' girls sulking over their misfortune.

"You had that coming!" said Gray as he slowly recovered from his laughing fit. "You expected that stupid plan to work?".

"You should've told us in the beginning!" deadpanned Lily as she still stood there like a lifeless statue along with Lucy.

"I wanted to have some fun!" replied Gray almost starting to laugh again.

"Aye!" Happy agreed with Gray.

"RAARGH! Let's do this fairy tail style!" Lily sprang back, cheering up Lucy in the process and bringing a smirk on Gray's face as well.

After a few minutes, the four were seen on the roof of the mansion, gathered near a window. They were trying to open it without causing much of a ruckus.

"Dammit! It's not opening!" complained Lily as she yanked on the window with half of her might so as to not disturb the inmates.

Gray then pushed her aside and made a small toothpick with ice magic. Then he cut a big hole in the glass and turned to look at Lily with a 'Seriously?' look. As he was about to climb into the house, Lucy pushed the other window open. 'Huh?' was all Gray and Lily could think of. Ashamed of their stupidity they just got in quietly after Lucy, while Happy followed behind.

"Now… to find the library!" whispered Lucy. When she looked at Gray and Lily she was speechless in a different way. They were walking while sticking to walls, while looking around as though they were paranoid, nervousness written all over their faces. She concluded that their stealth was over minus 100. "Idiots! Just follow me quietly!" she commanded them.

After walking and looking around for a while they finally reached their destination.

"That was easy!" said Lucy as she silently twisted the knob and pushed the door open. When she stepped inside, she felt as though she stepped into another world. One filled with seemingly infinite books, stacked in hundreds of floors.

"How are we going to find the book in here?" said Lily while turning and looking around almost to the point that her eyes had become twirls. "Okay! Letss findh the bhook!" she blabbered half-conscious due to her head spinning.

"Hey… is this the one?" asked Happy as he pulled out a random book from a shelf while flying.

The other three's jaws dropped when they saw the book labeled 'Day Break'. They ran upto the book and examined it. It was the book they intended to find, which was fortunately unfortunately found by a weird cat.

"Wait! This book we found… it was way too easy…" Lucy spoke her thoughts. " and is written by Kamu Zaleon!" she added as she looked at the cover.

"By who-" Lily was cut off by the sound of the doors busting open.

"Of course it would be easy!" said the Duke in a sinister voice. "Because I set it up! You smelled fishy the moment you arrived. I could figure!".

"Time for you punishment for the sinners… that is you, who have trespassed and tried to steal my property!" shouted the Duke as he made his way to the end of the library and pressed a 'red' button.

"You two brothers capture those insolent fools" ordered the man while pointing in the general direction of the three. The wall near him shifted and revealed two men, one with a large frying pan and other with a bandana on his forehead.

"Yes! It's been a long time since we even had a warm up! Try to at least put up a fight, will ya!" said one of the brothers.

"It's about damn time! I'm itching for some action!" said Gray as he smashed his fist into his palm, with Lily following suit.

"Lucy take the book and escape!" said Lily as she signaled her to escape from the passage nearby. "We'll take care of them!".

"Okay, be careful!" replied Lucy as she jumped into the passage with the book open and ready for reading.

"What could that book have?" pondered the Duke. "It was the greatest collection of my achievements written by the greatest writer! Why would anyone want that!?".

The two brothers charged forward finding the most opportune time to be when they distracted. The two of them landed successful hits and both Gray and Lily. Gray was the first to recover, then he helped Lily up and got into a fighting stance.

"This should be a handicap enough I guess!" taunted Gray.

The brothers paying no heed to this, decided for a better attack. Once again leading the offense they came in with kicks this time. This time both Lily and Gray blocked and dodged respectively. But the brothers finding it an opportunity focused solely on Lily. The other brother, with the frying pan, left no time to react as he smashed Lily across the room with it into one of the book shelves, kicking up a large dust cloud. This action was due to the provocation earlier by Gray.

"LILY!" cried Gray in worry as he ran towards Lily, only to be interrupted by the brothers again. Gray was also sent flying to where Lily was, that is into a wall kicking up even more dust.

"Heh! Is that all you've got for such big talk?" ridiculed the non-pan-bro.

"You lack teamwork. Thus your defeat!" added the pan-bro.

"Uh… Uhh… Ah that was quite the hit you know!" said as she walked out of the dust cloud twisting her elbow and then wiping the blood trickling down her mouth.

"Hey, now that makes the fight more interesting!" were Gray's words as he too emerged out of the smoke with a handful of bruises.

"Wha- what are you two doing? I didn't pay you for this! Get them!" panicked the duke as he saw Gray and Lily smiling even after the hits.

This time Gray took the lead and launched " **Ice make: Lance** ". Thin sharp needles flew across the room towards the bro-duo. The pan-bro launched the other bro into the air with his pan and then immediately absorbed the lances. He then released the magic towards Lily, while the other bro came in with a counter kick at Gray. Both the targets dodged this one. Lily started building up her magic and Gray punched his opponent back to his origin.

"Tch! We missed out timing! But… that won't happen again. HAAAAH!" roared the pan-bro as he repeated the same move again.

But this time, before he could do anything Gray used " **Ice make: Floor** " removing foot grip. So the brothers slipped and fell on the floor. When the woke up they were greeted with gigantic ice fists. The pan-bro tried absorbing the ice but it didn't work.

"Wha-?" he was cut off mid-way as he and his brother were sandwiched in between ice hands and rendered unconscious.

"Oh! You lose. But I had fun fighting you guys" said Lily. But as she turned to towards the exit she was facing the group of maids working in the house. "Why? Not this agaaaaiin!".

"We will stall you until the Duke recovers his possession!" said the head maid with pink hair. She was the largest of them all.

The Duke had actually gone to get Lucy during the fight while ordering the maids to stall the other two. The Duke had used a very unusual way of locomotion through the passage way… drilling… because he couldn't fit in the default passageway width.

"Here you are missy!" said the Duke as he caught Lucy by her wrists behind her back in a difficult-to-escape position.

"Guhh! Let go of me, you criminal!" shouted Lucy.

"Happy is here to help!" saying so Happy kicked the Duke on his chubby face with high speed sending him flying into the sewer.

"Why? Would you call a noble gentleman like me a criminal?" asked the Duke with confidence. "What's written in the book making you think like that? It's a collection of my greatest achievements!".

"No. How could you say that? You…" replied Lucy. "You forced Kamu Zaleon into writing this book! That itself is enough to show off your selfishness!".

"You! Wretched BRAT! How dare you badmouth me… a DUKE!" cried the enraged Duke not being to tolerate his name being tarnished by a mere commoner. "This insolence will not be tolerated! I will have you return my belonging… by force!".

"Make me!" shot back Lucy with confidence.

As soon as Lucy made the statement, the Duke's eyebrow twitched indicating that he had snapped and started drilling through the sewer wall in random directions striking Lucy and Happy as he approached them.

" **Open Gate of the Scorpion: Scorpio** " Lucy summoned Scorpio and commanded him to attack the opponent. Scorpio brought his sting forward and let out a tornado of wind and sand. But unfortunately the Duke was not in the same place for long causing him to miss his mark. Scorpio also received the same treatment as Lucy and ended up back to the celestial world due to the damage he sustained.

Then Lucy suddenly noticed a blue blob floating on the water surface with bubbles forming besides it. "WAAAAH! Happy! Are you alright?" she said as realization hit her and she rushed to the poor cat. It was out cold. Lucy was in trouble now, not that much really though. But she had a workaround for that.

" **Open Gate of the Crab: Cancer** " Lucy chanted while waving her key in a pattern. After a bright white glow, a man with crab legs sticking out of his back stood there. He was wearing a pair of shades and was armed with scissors.

"Lady Lucy you need a haircut now?" asked Cancer.

"No. But I need you to take care of that guy!" Lucy commanded pointing in the general direction of the Duke.

When the guy stopped for a second to investigate Lucy, he was attacked by Cancer. After the attack he was left bald.

When the man searched for hair on his now lightweight hairless head, he was stunned beyond words. "This… this… humiliation! I will not tolerate it any longer! **I summon Virgo**! Get over here!" screamed the man.

Suddenly the ceiling of the sewer started to crumble at a point from which emerged the pink haired gorilla maid and two other people clinging onto her.

"Virgo? And Gray, Lily? What?" was all Lucy could manage after looking at the scene.

* * *

 **A few minutes earlier…**

* * *

"Oh it's the gorilla maids!" stated Gray nonchalantly.

"Bring it on!" said Lily.

As the fight started the first maid, the head maid with pink hair was the only one to put up a fight, the rest of them were easily defeated and left out cold. Eventually even she was also overpowered and left for cleanup.

Believing her to out cold too, Gray and Lily both decided to finally lend Lucy a hand when suddenly they were hugged, not so very affectionately by Virgo, who was attempting a last ditch effort to take them down. But an untimely call by her master made her to change her actions. But she forgot to release the two with her.

When she had arrived to her master's summons she was having the two people who could shift the balance of the fight with her. A very big unfortunate mistake on Virgo's part. And sadly it didn't help that Virgo was already weakened due to the one's she brought along with them.

* * *

 **Back to the present…**

* * *

"Oh, hey Lucy! How are you and Happy holding up?" asked Lily.

"Fine for now! Happy is out cold there!" replied Lucy pointing at a cute ball of blue fur snoring off to glory.

"Hey Happy, this guy here is stealing your fish!" shouted Lily while winking at Lucy. Hearing this Gray let out a sigh while still in Virgo's hold.

Suddenly the cat woke up, then he let out a strong predator's aura, indicating he didn't like his fish being meddled with. Then he scratched away at the bald head with fury, causing the man to falter and fall over. In the process he caught hold of something as well.

"Time to end this!" said Lily as she gathered her magic.

"Guys get back!" said Gray as he prepared a thick shield of ice.

" **Instant Ice: Ice spike Garden** " Lily let out a shout and slammed her hands on the floor releasing all the pent up magic.

From the outside, the whole mansion was seemingly destroyed in an instant by large closely clustered ice spikes, which replaced it.

Then a little later the four teammates came walking out of the mansion with Lucy and Happy dumbstruck, Gray pinching the bridge of his nose and Lily blowing a carefree whistle.

"Okay, now about the book. Guys we need to talk to the people who requested it to us! This is important!" suggested Lucy strongly.

"We have to destroy the book, that's the mission!" stated Lily holding up the request flyer in front of Lucy's face.

"But this is more important, we need to know why he wants this book destroyed!" replied Lucy.

"Hey… Lily just listen to her already!" said Gray in an annoyed tone.

"Fine, whatever. Let's go already!" replied Lily in a displeased tone.

With that the four just traced their way back to the mansion of the couple and entered the house. When Lucy showed the book to the man he was furious at the sight.

"Why did you bring this book?!" the man shouted at Lucy.

"Just listen. This book is written by Kamu Zaleon, your father, Mr. Kaby!" said Lucy. "You must give this a read!".

"No. I cannot read this filthy thing!" replied the man.

"No you must read this. I insist!" urged Lucy as she pushed the book onto the man.

As the man hesitantly opened the book and started reading the books contents started to rearrange themselves. The book gave off a bright glow after which the name and the contents of the book were rearranged. The book was now titled 'Dear Kaby'. When he started reading the book, his face turned sour, and it looked as though he was going to tear up.

Looking at this Lucy spoke… "This book was written to you! Kamu Zaleon cast on the spell on this book so as to not the let Duke know. It is a letter written by a father in his last moments to his son, that is you!" she said with warmth in her voice.

Reading further into the book, the finally broke down into tears. "I'm so sorry… father. I misunderstood you. Please forgive me!" he spoke to the air with happiness and hope. "Thank you! I will cherish and protect this book forever" he said reassuringly.

'Now for the reward… a million jewels' thought Lucy as daydreamed of swimming in money.

"We're leaving, Lucy… Gray. Let's go Happy!" ordered Lily as she tuned to walk away.

"Okay… Huh? What about the reward?!" asked Lucy.

"We haven't done the mission as specified!" said Lily.

"But…" retaliated Lucy.

"No buts. We didn't do the job, so we don't ask for money" said Lily in a stern voice. "Moreover they can't get that money!".

"What do you mean?" asked Lucy confusingly.

"Ah! You found us out!" said the woman besides the man with a short chuckle.

"Well, you see we did to get the attention of the mages" said the man. "We wanted so that the people who came to do the job didn't back down easily. But I think we were fortunate to find you bunch".

"Ah! That's no big deal. We're always here to help!" said Happy.

"Rightly put, Happy!" said Lily sowing off her Fairy Tail insignia. "Coz we're Fairy Tail!" to which Gray sported a wide and energy filled grin.

"Thank you once again! We're lucky to get help from you kids. May you prosper in your upcoming lives!" said the couple with a smile that radiated a warm feeling which somehow kindled Lucy's heart.

Waving off to the couple the four left the mansion. Lucy was not entirely happy on not getting the reward money but the gratitude she got instead was something she felt was very… good and a precious memory to cherish. This firmed her belief that Fairy Tail was the place for her. Now she had a strong reason to enjoy life… again.

'Enjoy life… soo tired… I wanna sleep' were the thoughts of an exhausted Lucy. She was happy that her first official mission gave her a lot of experience and her first good memory.

Then when they reached the guild, Lily had reported the mission's completion. Then she walked up to the group and made a proposal to Lucy.

"Lucy… I would like you to join our team!" said Lily.

"What? You want me on team frostbite?" asked Lucy surprised beyond belief.

"Yeah! Since everyone in our guild functions in groups! I thought I should invite you!" said Lily with a smile.

"Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it… but is it fine for me to join you guys? Wouldn't I be a drag?" asked Lucy, her nervousness and lack of self-confidence evident in her speech pattern.

"Of course it is fine. You aren't a drag and you proved that two times already!" replied Lily while winking at her. "So what do you think? You up for it?".

"Yeah! I would love to join your team!" said Lucy with a grin showing off her happiness level.

"That's great!" said Lily. "Okay. That's it for today I guess! See you tomorrow".

"Yeah! See you tomorrow" replied Lucy.

As she left the guild to go her apartment she looked ecstatic. Her dream of being in fairy tail had finally come true.

Standing in front of her apartment, she looked the door for a few seconds before pushing it open. As she took a step into the building and stopped right there. She had just remembered something crucially important… breaking into a sweat almost instantly. Her rent, it was due and she had no money.

'Why does this happen to me only? OH NOOOOO!' were the only thoughts twirling in her mind alongside the photo of the landlady with a demonic look. She shakingly entered her home and went straight to her sleep without eating anything as the fear of facing the landlady took away her hunger.

But she had a smile nonetheless, still remembering the warm feeling she felt after completing the mission that day.

* * *

 **A/N: And that's a wrap. Phew… that was a big chapter, but was fun to write. Sorry for the late update. Had tests and all other crappy mood disturbing things in past few days. Well enough rant… I'll see you guys in the next chapter. Until then… bye… bye…**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter… Sorry for the delay. I got caught up in a ton of stuff which kept me away, so… I know I'm late. But anyways the chapter's here, enjoy…**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy tail.**

 **Chapter 11: Back to schedule**

* * *

 **Next Day, morning…**

* * *

A bright morning as always, what else can the bright town of Magnolia have for a morning. The was bustling as always with a little more so today. The reason, nothing at all. Since every day is new in Magnolia, people hope for better each oncoming day. That's why the city's ever-increasing energy is visible a little more each day.

*TRRRING**TAP* the alarm was stopped from ringing any further, due to its annoying nature. Sun's rays made its way into the room of a certain blond girl, specifically a mage, introducing her to the bright morning. But that wasn't the case for Lucy, because she was already awake in fact wide awake with her eyes almost popping out of their sockets. But the expression she had was different than what is to be expected. Her fearful expression clearly indicated that she had a nightmare.

But what's different is that she had experienced it instead of seeing it. Long story short, she forgot to pay her rent. And thus is in this pitiful condition. But it wasn't like the end of the world, because she could always pay the rent the following month, right? Pushing her tensions aside with that thought she got up from her bed and got ready.

"Time to head out!" saying so Lucy got to the exit of her apartment. But before she could reach for the door, she noticed a shadow looming over her. She tuned to look and found out it was her landlady.

"RENT?" said the woman in a hoarse voice frightening the poor girl reminding her of the nightmare.

"I'll… pay it… next month… okay?" squeaked Lucy in utter fear.

The landlady just stood there without saying anything staring intently at the girl. Lucy sensed danger following the gesture and decided to flee.

"I am in a hurry; you see…" continued Lucy. "I'LL DEFINITELY PAY THE RENT NEXT MONTH!" was all that was heard when the Lucy had run off to the guild.

"Well, fine… as long as you understand!" said the old woman calmly as she went back inside the apartment. 'What a fool!'.

When she was a fair distance away from that place, she slowed down to catch her breath. "I escaped her wra-" *ACHOO*. 'Someone just badmouthed me! Who I wonder?'.

Pushing aside those thoughts she let out a sigh of relief and proceeded towards the guild. When she reached her destination, she looked at the banner above, which read 'Fairy Tail', and smiled. Then she pushed open the doors and walked inside only to find herself in a large scale war with objects and debris flying all over the place. Then she made her way to the bar while ducking, dodging and evading the incoming non-hostile attacks actually directed towards another person.

"Good morning!" asked Lucy as she pointed at her usual breakfast on the menu. "So…? What's up, Lisanna?".

"Ah, hello and Good morning Lucy. Nothing much just enjoying a good view!" replied Lisanna as she cleaned a mug and proceeded with Lucy's order.

"How was your first mission?" asked Mira as she came up to Lucy while doing what Lisanna was doing previously. "Had a good experience?".

"More or Less?!" said Lucy in an unsure tone.

"Oh, I see. So, you had fun. That's great!" cheered Mira.

Then she turned to look at the ongoing fight with a warm smile. Her eyes hinted a little sorrow but hope was there as well. Lucy noticed it, but decided against asking anything because she thought it would hurt her. She kept avoiding the question considering Mira's and Lily's feelings.

It seemed as though the fight wasn't even remotely close to ending, when suddenly someone burst through the guild doors. It was Jet. He was panting heavily and had a deathly pale look on his face.

"I-It's her… sh-she's here. Everybody, SHE'S HERE!" cried Jet as he hurriedly got to a table and positioned himself like a working gentleman.

The guild stayed silent for a moment and then suddenly went into a chaotic mess of people running around with hall cleaning work. This threw Lucy's brain into a disarray.

"What's with everybody? And who is coming?" Lucy asked Mira while looking at the chaos with a 'Wha-?' face, question marks flying over her head.

"It's her, I see!" replied Lily who was sitting beside her on an adjacent chair. "Better prepare yourself".

"My, my!" was all Mira had to say to the matter. She still had her happy expression though which seemed to brighten up a tad bit more.

"What?" replied Lucy with another question. But she didn't have to wait for the answer.

From the guild doors walked in a figure with footsteps sounding like metal tapping. The figure became visible when the light had died down. It was a girl wearing an armor with a blue skirt and had red hair.

'Ohhhh! Its Titania! Erza Scarlet… in the flesh!' thoughts of excitement ran through Lucy's head.

When Lucy's gaze had returned to the others she saw something astonishing. All of them were seated like civil people and looked as though they didn't have connection to the past selves a minute ago, while doing what were already doing.

"W-what is that Erza?" asked a brave soul from the crowd.

"It's a souvenir that I got on my last mission. Why? Is there any problem?" asked the lady loudly intimidating the poor guy.

"No. None at all. Nothing" replied the brave soul who was Jet.

"I need to see Master. Where is he?" asked Erza in a stern voice.

"He's not here!" replied Wakaba. "He's gone to the Guild master meet in Clover city".

"I have to have a talk with him about the guild!" replied Erza. "Which brings up the matter of the guild causing too many problems these days!".

"I have been hearing complaints of large scale destruction and other crimes done by the guild members during their missions!" she stated. "I will absolutely not allow sullying the reputation of the guild!".

"First of all, Nab pick up a job already! Next, Cana drink from a mug! Elfman stop harassing your clients! Mac-" she stopped short when she noticed a certain figure at the corner of her eye which had a rather laid back expression, according to her.

"YOU!" she shouted. "You destroyed the whole Hargeon port! What the hell were you thinking?" she added as she walked towards the addressed person.

"Hey shut it tin can, I didn't do it on purpose! It just happened…" replied Lily while casually chewing on a piece of gum. "Besides I had her with me!" added Lily while pointing towards Lucy.

"Yeah, yeah!" cheered Happy.

"Wha-? Speak for yourself I was in no way involved…" replied Lucy, but her decreasing voice depicted another picture.

"No, it was definitely her spirit!" Happy added to Lily's point.

"I… uh… couldn't help it!" she smiled nervously.

"So you're the newbie. I'll forgive you this time but be careful next time" said Erza in a rather comforting tone which annoyed Lily.

"Hey, why are you siding with her?" Lily commented at Erza's actions ticking her off.

"What did you say, you brute?" replied Erza clenching her fist.

"I said what I said, metal head!" shot back Lily while butting heads with Erza.

"Go, Lily! Go, Erza!" Happy cheered on while thrusting his hands up in the air.

"Hey whose side are you on Happy?" said the two angry females before going back to arguing again.

"Ah, it's always like this!" sighed Mira, but then her smile returned back bright as ever. "But it's good to see they haven't changed much after that".

"What do you mean?" asked Lucy confused about the current situation.

"They've been rivals since they met when they were kids!" said Lisanna. "Even Mira was a part of that rivalry! But it changed after that happened… It's a long story!".

"Ahh! It's pointless in arguing with you!" growled Erza as she stopped butting heads and sighed and then formed serious expression on her face. "This is important… listen!".

"During my last mission I picked up information while eavesdropping on a group of mages that have possession of the Lullaby!" she stated. "I don't know what they intend to do but they are certainly up to no good" she added while her expression turned even more serious indicating the severity of the problem.

"I need your help, Lily!" she said in a straight-forward tone. Many of the guild mates nearby were astounded by the sudden statement.

"Wha… fine!" Lily agreed immediately understanding that this was no laughing matter. "Happy, we're going on a mission!".

"Aye!" replied Happy with glowing enthusiasm.

"Naturally… Gray is coming too!" said Erza in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Why me?" retorted Gray but was silenced the next moment when he felt two soul-piercing glares directed towards him. "Okay… okay… I'll come. Just don't kill me!".

"Meet me at the train station! We'll talk details there!" informed Erza. The other two just nodded their heads.

When the discussion was done. The said people left the guild hall to prepare for the mission. When Lucy returned to eat her breakfast she was greeted with a rather peculiar expression. Mira was smiling intently at the blonde mage.

"What?" Lucy had a puzzled look. But when realization struck her "You… want me to go… with them!?".

"Just to make sure the other towns and Gray remain unharmed!" Mira replied in a sweet tone with the weird smile still plastered to her face.

'This is not my lucky day!' thought Lucy remembering all the events that took place that day, not many but still bothersome.

"This is rather interesting!" said Mira.

"What is?" asked Lucy.

"Aside from Gildarts and thunder god tribe, this must Fairy Tail's strongest team!" Mira declared.

"Hoh! This is gonna be a blast, literally!" said Macao. Mira giggled in response whereas the other guild members were scared.

* * *

 **A few minutes later, Train station…**

* * *

"Oh so you came along?" asked Gray.

"Well, it's to minimize the destruction and protect you!" replied Lucy while trying to hide what she said from Lily.

"Well I doubt that's ever gonna happen! But thanks anyways…" he replied in a similar manner.

"What are you two whispering to each other?" intervened Lily, hoping to find a good reason to bully Gray.

"Nothing much!" said the duo as they stood straight with hands in the form of a cross.

"Why hasn't Happy come?" asked Lucy finding it strange Lily being without Happy. Lily responded by pointing to her backpack from which faint snoring sounds could be heard.

"Oh, I see. He is a cat after all!" sighed Lucy.

"She's late!" muttered Lily.

"It's fine. There's no hurry now, is there?" Lucy placed a rhetoric question. "Ah, there she is!".

"I'm late. Hit me!" Erza requested Lucy sincerely.

"Ah that's fine. No p-kyaah!" shrieked Lucy when she saw Lily punching Erza hard.

"Hey! It was just a…" said Lucy after recovering from the random moment.

"Had your punishment? Now tell us about the mission!" demanded Lily.

"No. I'm sorry but this doesn't suffice!" replied Erza while bowing her head apologetically.

"Arrgh. Tell us about the damn mission already!" said Lily not being able to tolerate Erza's 'foolishness'.

"Slowdown… wild woman!" replied Erza, muttering the last part, as she started recollecting all the information.

"Grrrrr!" growled Lily while clenching her fist trying to suppress her anger to the best of her abilities.

"First let's get on the train!" said Erza while pointing towards the incoming train. "We'll talk on our way to Onibus".

In the train, the four of them were seated in a rather comfortable seat, which seemed to induce a lot of sleep. One by one they started yawning, until an endless loop of unstoppable and uncontrollable yawns were let out through the mouths of the four mages.

"This is rather odd! Now… about the Lullaby. I don't know what the mages possessing it were trying to achieve with it. But that demon from the book of Zeref cannot be released here!" said Erza with serious tone.

"Okay!" replied the two mages who were awake.

"I was just thinking… about what magic you use, Miss Erza?" asked Lucy nervously.

"Her magic caused the surroundings to become bloody red!" said Happy. He was out of the bag and was sitting on Gray's head.

"Yikes!" yelped Lucy.

"Erza is fine. And no my magic is Requip" said Erza. "But I personally think Gray's magic is more beautiful".

"Nah! It's nothing much!" saying so Gray made an ice structure in the shape of the Fairy Tail insignia.

"Wow, so beautiful! Then Lily's should also be the same, right?" asked Lucy.

"No. Her magic lets her manipulate ice, she can't model using imagination like me!" said Gray.

"Oh, I see…" replied Lucy while having the expression of a curious kid.

*Onibus Station has arrived*

"Our stop! Quick, we need to move! We don't have much time!" commanded Erza.

When they got down, Erza immediately noticed the dark guild members who were talking about the Lullaby. She ran towards the group and immediately brought her sword out.

"Stop right there. Hand over Lullaby! You can't escape!" yelled out Erza alerting the men.

"Heh. You can't do anything, you fairy scum!" said the leader of the group of men who was hovering above them.

"The three of you are no match for us!" taunted on of the men.

"Hey I'm here too!" Happy reminded the people there of his presence.

"Wait, three? I mean, four?" Gray blurted out while looking around. He found that Lily was missing.

*BOOM*

The train that was departing suddenly came to a screeching halt when one of its compartments burst open, with an icy cold tornado raging out of it.

"LILY!" shouted the three mages, when Lily had jumped out of the train and started walking towards the group.

* * *

 **A few moments earlier, in the train...**

* * *

"Are we there yet?" muttered Lily as she woke up from her sleep only to find that the train was still moving and the compartment empty. "Fine do the job without me!". She was annoyed.

Then a man came and sat on the seat opposite to hers. Then he glanced over her.

"Oh, you are quite the beauty!" he spoke. That didn't help Lily's mood.

Then he noticed the fairy tail guild mark on her shoulder and decided to speak again.

"Oh, so you're from fairy tail! Are all the girls there this cute?" he said. "Hey can you send some of the girls over to us for some fun, especially that Mirajane. We promise to treat you properly. You too can come if you want to!".

"Back off creep. We aren't going to go anywhere with you idiots!" Lily replied annoyed.

"So, you don't want to come, huh?" he replied. "Fine then I'll have to force you to comply" he said while raising his fist in the air.

"I said, BACK OFF!" yelled Lily as she unleashed her strongest spell blasting open the compartment's roof. The train halted in response.

Then she jumped out of the compartment.

"What a creep!" she said to herself as she walked away from that spot.

* * *

Realizing something the leader flew straight towards the compartment while commanding his soldiers "Stop these brats, don't let them near me!". The group immediately surrounded the four mages and started to attack them relentlessly.

"Why is he running?" said Lucy while dodging the attacks throw by the men.

"We've got to get to him!" commanded Erza. "You aren't going to stop us!".

As she said that the leader of the group flew above them to the opposite direction, and disappeared into the distance.

"I know we can't stop you, fairy scum! But that ain't our job…" came a voice from a person approaching them from the wreck of a train. "We're here to stall you. That's more than enough for Erigor!".

" **Shadow bind** " yelled the man as his shadow touched the shadows of the young mages paralyzing them.

'Oh, damn it! I can't move now!' were the thoughts of the mages other than Lucy.

"HA! Now! Mess them up boys!" commanded the man.

"Tch! Even though we don't take orders from Kageyama, this is what we would do normally anyways!" said one of the men as he rushed forward to attack.

" **iss make phlo** " muttered Gray with his clenched teeth. The ground nearby froze causing instant loss of grip. The charging men toppled over each other into a pile of bodies, struggling to get up.

"So what of it? You still can't move!" taunted Kageyama.

"Who said that?" said Happy as he kicked the shadow magic user with all his might, sending him flying a few meters losing his grip on the mages. "Not considering me a team member has its perks I guess!" said Happy with pride.

"Heh! Time for your face to say hello to my fist!" proclaimed Gray with an evil grin plastered to his face while cracking his knuckles.

Then for a few minutes only the sound of flesh meeting fists was heard and then a there was a sculpture carved out of ice which contained all the grunts who had made the mistake of attacking the young mages, especially Erza.

"That's quite the sculpture!" commented Lucy. "A lump of gold for the council!".

"Hey you tell us what you intend to do with the Lullaby, NOW!" demanded Erza while raising her sward and pointing it at Kageyama, the only Eisenwald member who was not trapped in ice.

"I-I w-will tell you everything, please don't hurt me!" cowered Kageyama as he put his hands in his pockets. "Just take this and you'll know everything".

"What is this?" said Erza as she took the thing given by him. Then when she looked back at him.

"Just kidding!" he said while sporting a smirk. Then he disappeared into thin air with the words "See you never suckers!".

"Damn it! He escaped!" complained Erza. Then wondering what could be in her hand she opened her fist only to find a black panty. "Kyaaah!" she shrieked while throwing it away.

"That's what you get for believing a dark mage. Geez what an idiot!" taunted Lily.

"Erza's so stupid!" added Happy while sitting on top of Lily's head.

"Says the person who slept on the train like a log!" shot back Erza.

"Yeah, yeah… whatevs metal head!" replied Lily.

"What did you say?" growled Erza as she butted heads with Lily. It didn't look like a cat fight as the two females were giving off some pretty scary killing intent, enough to make Lucy and Gray not go near them. it didn't affect Happy simply because he was a cat.

Building up the courage Gray decided to break the tie "Girls this not the time to quarrel!".

"You don't interfere!" was the reply from the fuming girls completely shutting Gray off, infuriating him.

"LISTEN TO ME!" he shouted as he conjured a chain and bound the two girls together, crashing their heads into each other, effectively calming them down.

'Whoa Gray can be scary too… sometimes' thought Lucy.

"Yeah he can be…" said Happy.

"Stop reading other peoples thoughts, damn it!" cried Lucy helplessly.

"Okay. We have to chase Erigor before he uses that thing" said Lily as she pointed in the direction in which Erigor went earlier.

"Get in that Magic vehicle, we'll have to catch up to Erigor!" said Erza she rushed towards the said object followed by the others.

When they were all set to go Erza sped up the vehicle and blew past everything with great speed. The carriage wobbled violently as it ran over small pebbles and uneven ground. Gray was sitting outside the carriage with Erza guiding her while the other three waited inside the wobbly carriage being tossed like salad getting ready to throw up at moment's notice.

"Slow down a bit Erza, you'll blow the SC plug!" worried Gray as he looked the magic indicator of the car which broke past the vehicles limit easily.

"We've got no time to slow down! We can't lose him!" replied Erza.

"Lucy I've been meaning to tell you about something important for a while but I cant seem to remember it correctly" said Happy while searching his memories for the important 'thing'.

"Okay you can tell me that later" replied Lucy. "Right now Lullaby is more important!".

"Hey now that I remember Lullaby is demon from the book of Zeref" pondered Lucy. "And if I recall correctly, as its name suggests it is a flute which when played make a melody to make its listeners sleep… for eternity! Its death magic! Erza we've got to hurry I think Erigor is trying to kill people with that flute!".

"Then hang on tight, I'm going to speed up!" saying so Erza fed more magic to the vehicle literally maxing it out.

After a while they could make out a small station like thing in the distance. Then a little while later they saw that they had arrived at the Oshibana station. All of them got down and readied themselves for action.

"First we have to look for Erigor!" said Erza.

"Don't need to. He's just over there!" said Lily as she pointed at a flying figure with a thing in his hand.

"I suppose that is the flute Lullaby!" said Erza. "We have to stop him!".

"Let's go!" prompted Lily as she ran towards the target.

* * *

"Hold it right there!" shouted Erza as she brought her sword out.

"Oh! …So the fairy scum finally got to me, I'm scared now!" taunted Erigor while laughing maniacally. "But you can't stop me and my plan!".

"I won't allow you to kill any innocent civilians!" replied Erza sternly.

"Ha ha ha ha! Silly brats" laughed Erigor.

"I have a little surprise for you!" Erigor said. "Kageyama!" he signaled.

The next instant the young mages were paralyzed. "You fell for the trap again!" said the addressed person from before.

"Kill INNOCENT civilians? Who's innocent? All these scumbags are guilty as charged!" stated Erigor. "Anyways if I wanted to do that I would have done that a long time ago!".

"Heh! That was never the plan!" added Kageyama.

"You see my goal is in clover city!" said the maniac of a wind mage. "Now sit and chat for a while with my guild lackey about our elaborate plan or try to rescue the scumbags here because…".

As he finished saying that he cast a spell. The whole station was now surrounded by a fierce wind.

"Don't try to even touch that wall of wind. It'll tear you to shreds!" Erigor informed them. "Good luck trying to save all the hostages!" laughed the wind mage as he left for the said town.

"Hostages!? GODDAMNIT!" yelled Lily with frustration.

"Hey you fell for our trap too!" saying so Happy kicked the living daylights out of the unsuspecting shadow magic user. "People keep forgetting about me, so strange!".

Seeing the wind wall the mages started thinking of ways of escaping and rescuing the hostages safely. There were not many approaches, in fact there was only one they could think of: brute force. So Lily was the first to ty it out. She tried punching the wall only to get her hand cut, but luckily she didn't get any major injuries.

"What about freezing the wall?" asked Gray rhetorically as he tried freezing the wall of wind. But the magic couldn't even begin to work because it was being dissipated by the fast moving winds.

After several attempts of magic and other brute force methods going in vain they stopped to take a 'thinking' break.

"No matter what you try, nothing will work!" said Kageyama as he recovered from the kick.

"I got it!" proclaimed Lily.

"What? That you can't escape? Heh! What a dumb girl!" commented Kageyama which was completely ignored.

"Hey Lucy I just remembered the important thing!" said Happy.

"Not now Happy!" said Lucy. "We have to first find a way to escape!".

"I think this might help!" replied Happy as he pulled out a Golden Gate key from his rucksack.

"What? Where did you get that?" asked a stunned Lucy. Happy replied by telling her that he recovered the key from the Everlue mansion because the key lost its owner.

"This is the key of Virgo!" chirped an ecstatic Lucy. "Awesome another zodiac key! With this we can dig our way out!".

As she was about to call the spirit out she felt a sudden chill. And when she looked around she had noticed that the wind wall was gone.

"Ah, never mind!" said Lucy.

"I knew that would work!" said Lily confidently. "Now to clover city!".

"Wait, clover city… is the place where master is! And, the location… for the guild masters meeting!" said Erza out aloud realizing the goal Erigor was talking about.

"We have to stop Erigor! He is going to use the Lullaby on the guild masters!" added Gray.

Erza then suddenly fell to a knee, clearly showing signs of low magic. All the members were in a state of panic.

"Lily, Gray, go after Erigor and stop him!" Erza commanded. "I'll catch up to you guys in a bit!".

When she turned to look Kageyama had left the scene. But then not seeing it as a threat she forgot about it. Lucy stayed behind just in case anything happened.

As Lily and Gray were chasing after Erigor they noticed they were nearing Clover city. Lily was flying with the help of Happy and Gray was following in the magic vehicle. When Erigor was in sight Lily immediately aimed a few " **Razor Shards** " at Erigor.

The receiving end just realized that he was attacked and barely avoided the attack. Recomposing himself he turned around with an annoyed look on his face. The ice mages had caught up to the wind mage quite quickly and on a narrow bridge with only a train track.

"You brats are annoying me! To have escaped my wind wall you must be better than shit!" he said out loud. "I'll have to personally make you pay for stopping me and my plan!".

"We'll see about that!" replied Gray as he jumped out of the vehicle.

"So you brats have figured out my plan… that's right I intend to kill all the guild masters while they are vulnerable!" proclaimed Erigor. "That's the only way I can be free!".

"As if we'd let that happen!" relied Gray.

"Enough talk let me shut that mouth of yours, brat!" saying so Erigor launched a blade of wind towards Gray and Lily.

Narrowly dodging the attack Gray and Lily decided to go for ranged attacks themselves. So they threw their most basic ranged spells at the wind mage. But he didn't dodge them and the attacks didn't even connect with its target. They were dissipated because of something.

"Your attacks aren't even grazing me, don't even hope to defeat me!" taunted Erigor as gathered wind magic for another attack.

"What's blocking those attacks? Why aren't they working?" muttered Lily.

"This spiraling **Storm** **mail** of mine will ward off any of your puny attacks!" informed Erigor. "Now, even if you do know my defense, you can't defeat me!".

'Spiraling wind… hehe that's the key!' thought Happy. "Lily lets cool down his head a little" Happy signaled Lily and Gray with a thumbs up.

Lily understood the signal and proceeded to attack Erigor with a non-stop barrage of ranged ice attacks. " **Razor Shards** " " **Ice-make: Lance** " Gray and Lily relentlessly threw ice attacks at Erigor who just stayed in the air and waited patiently for the tow to stop their attacks.

"You're just wasting your time you know! I can keep this is up forever!" Erigor commented while closing his eyes. But a few moments later when the attacks didn't stop his temper rose a little.

"Hey quit it will ya damn brats, before I get serioussss" Erigor's tongue slithered since his jaw was stuck due to the sudden child his body experienced. "How did it get chilly so suddenly?".

The cold wind now spiraling around his body had become very chilly and causing Erigor to flinch a little.

"Heh! A little cold isn't going to stop me! Try harder brats!" he said proudly while throwing another attack at the ice mages.

But his attack didn't even go in the right direction. His muscles were involuntarily flinching to maintain body heat and caused his aim to miss. Then his ears popped and started to hurt really bad.

"AAAAHHH! What's happening? This hurts… stop this, you BRATS!" he cried in pain.

"This is what I was waiting for!" murmured Gray as he charged towards Erigor.

Erigor then somehow recovered from his pain. When he got his focus back he saw Gray in front of him with a fist, ready for action. Even before Erigor could do anything, Gray's fist smashed into his face and launched him towards the ground. Lily followed up with " **God Hand** " and finished the fight. Now with Erigor out cold, they could finally retrieve the flute, but…

"Where is the blasted flute? We fought him for nothing?" complained Lily.

"LILY! GRAY! Have you seen Kageyama?" shouted Erza as she came running towards them. "He escaped from us!".

"No, and the flute's not with him!" replied Lily while pointing at the unconscious body of Erigor.

"You defeated him!?" asked Lucy with a hint of doubt in her voice.

"Yeah! We did!" replied Lily enthusiastically.

"Wait… if Kageyama and the flute are missing then he must've taken it while you were fighting Erigor!" suggested Erza. "We have to stop him, he's too close to the meeting hall".

* * *

 **At the Guild masters meeting…**

"Master Makarov, you have a letter!" said a voice as a letter came flying right to Makarov's hands.

"Let's see what's this all about!" said Makarov as he opened and letter and a magic hologram of Mira popped out of the letter and informed him about the return of Erza and the forming of the guild's strongest team. By the end of the letter Makarov's soul was about to leave the body but was being pushed back in by the other masters.

"This is the worst day of my life! Why does this always happen to me?!" Makarov cried with tears falling off his cheeks like a river. "I know each of them are capable… but… but they are a little too capable when teamed up! That combination is the worst in terms of cost-to-performance ratio!".

"Calm down Makarov it's not like they aren't talented, are they?" reassured one of the other guild masters.

"No, it's not that at all. It's just that they express their talents a little too well!" replied Makarov tears still flowing down his cheeks.

A few moments later the meeting had concluded and everyone greeted one another and were leaving.

* * *

 **Back to Erza…**

"Almost there! Wha- he's already here!" worried Erza as she saw that Kageyama had already succeeded with his plan.

"Don't. Makarov will take care of that!" Goldmine, master of Quatro Cerberus guild, held Erza back.

"Oooh! Such young faces! Youth is awesome, isn't it?" squealed Bob, master of Blue Pegasus guild, said while looking at Gray with eyes in the shape of hearts.

"Ugh" was the reaction a disgusted Gray could give.

"Are all the people in the world of magic like this?" asked Lucy with a disappointed expression.

"Beats me!" replied Gray.

"Hey, look Kageyama's making his move!" reminded Lily, bringing everyone's attention to the shadow magic user.

* * *

 **With Kageyama…**

"Hey old man, what the hell are you doing?" asked Kageyama as he spotted Makarov sporting a perverted expression as he was reading a copy of sorcerer weekly.

"Gah. Uh, I… no… uh, I didn't do anything. I was just checking how popular my kids are… hehe" Makarov fumbled while laughing nervously.

"I don't care about that. But could you, uh… listen to me playing this?" he asked showing hesitation but no nervousness.

"Well… if it's good then, by all means, do play!" Makarov replied with a cheerful expression.

'It seems the old man hasn't noticed it, yet' were Kageyama's thoughts. "Then, I'll start…" saying so he brought the flute close to his mouth. But he didn't play it.

"Come on, I'm waiting!" cheered Makarov. "You can't play?".

"I… can't…" he replied.

"You know son, your inner conscience stopped you from doing what you were going to do!" said Makarov. "Those actions of yours only add to your guilt".

"I… don't…" mumbled Kageyama.

"Everyone has a bad side that they don't want to accept. If you accept that part, you can change too" added Makarov. "Besides that thing will sound awful no matter how well you play. Pretty ironic for a name".

"So… so… you knew from the start?! A-about… the flute?" asked an astonished Kageyama.

"Which guild master would not recognize one of the famous magic of all time?" replied Makarov with a smile. "You don't have to do this to be free. There are other ways as well, give them a try!"

Hearing the words Kageyama dropped the flute. He dropped to his knees slowly while bringing his hands near his face and covering it as though he realized something terrible. Indeed, it was. But luckily for him he escaped the cruel path.

"Phew, that was close…" said Lily.

"Yeah, no kidding!" added Gray. "We stopped the flute from being played".

"Let us return to the guil-" Erza was cut halfway through her sentence when the lot standing there suddenly felt a spike in the surrounding magic. Specifically, from the location of where Kageyama was.

When the Makarov noticed that, he was shocked as he saw the three eyes glowing with purple light.

Before he could do anything the flute started to rumble and then was enveloped in bright light. Then a voice boomed through the atmosphere "I've had enough of you imbeciles. I will have to personally deal with you myself. I'll devour your puny souls".

When the voice was gone they could see a gigantic figure which had the ugly face of the flute and a body which was made of wood. It was clearly visible that the flute had transformed into the thing.

"So this is the true form of Lullaby?" Erza asked to no one in particular.

"It would seem so. Well you know what know what to do child?" replied Makarov.

When Makarov completed saying that, the group of young mages readied themselves for battle.

"Gray, lets chop some firewood!" said Lily as she conjured her spell.

"Let's help them Lucy" commanded Erza. The reply was simply a nod in agreement.

Erza summoned a sword while Lucy called forth Taurus. " **Ice make: Lance** " " **Razor shards** " sharp ice needles and lances made their way towards the wooden giant while Erza and Taurus slashed the demon's legs. The demon suffered quite a good amount of damage. The contact of the ice and wood kicked up a dust cloud, while the demon fell.

"That was easy!" taunted Lily. "It was over in an instant".

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch" said Gray. He was right.

Before Lily could realize a hand burst out of the smoke and slammed Lily into the distance after which she crashed into a house with the rubble on top of her. And before Gray could process any of that the other hand did the same to him. Seeing this, Erza charged the demon and tried slashing it. But the sword didn't cut through. The wood was reinforced with magic and the sword was stuck mid-way. Unable to retrieve her sword she was helpless as the demon picked her up and threw her into a few buildings in the general direction of Lily. It was over in an instant. The demon had defeated the three by swatting them away like flies. Lucy, being the non-combatant, couldn't perceive the speed and felt fear.

"Your pathetic attempt to defeat me has led to your demise. I will now feast on your worthless souls!" proclaimed Lullaby.

The unsuspecting demon was hit by a massive hand made of ice. "I'm not dead yet, firewood!" yelled Lily as she came into view bringing hope to poor Lucy's heart.

"Lucy I need your help!" said Lily as she came close to Lucy and whispered something into her ear.

"Happy! Come here, you know what to do right…?" she hinted.

"Aye!" replied Happy. He then came and sat on Lily's shoulder.

"You have the nerve to attack me even in the afterlife?! I shall devour you slowly and painfully" roared the demon.

"Hey she said she's not dead!" came Gray voice as launched ice lances at the demons face. The demon was unfazed by the attack, though only emotionally not physically.

At the same time Erza made her appearance and joined the group. Looking at the Lily and Gray, she felt relieved finding them alive albeit very heavily bruised.

"Round two start!" announced Lily. "LET'S GO!".

"You insolent fools don't understand fear. I will teach you tha-" the demon was cut off in the middle of his oration because a fly was buzzing near his non-existent ears. "Which impertinent being dare disrupt my speech?" he roared in annoyance. He tried playing a tune but couldn't since the extra holes made by the lances, which hit him, let out the air too quickly.

"Hey, I'm not a being I'm a cat!" replied Happy, offended upon being called a 'being'.

"That's awful lot of pride for a walking stick!" commented Gray.

'Good Happy is doing a good job' thought Lily. "Lucy, do your thing!" she yelled while gathering her own magic.

" **I call upon the gate of the maiden: Virgo** " Lucy called out before waving her key and summoning Virgo. "Dig a hole just beneath the giant's foot, now!".

"Please do punish me after that, Princess!" requested Virgo as she disappeared into the ground.

"That spirit…" wall all Lucy could manage as a reply.

Distracted with Happy the giant didn't pay attention to its surroundings and unfortunately stepped right into the hole. Now stuck it couldn't move as the hole was now tightly bound around its legs.

"Erza, your turn!" said Lucy while signaling Virgo to return.

"GRAY! We're up!" shouted Erza as she summoned her black wing armor and a giant sword.

Gray on the other hand brought his hands in the stance to cast his molding magic and summoned a huge cannon made of ice.

"HAAAH" yelled Erza as she slashed through the giant's legs and made a clean cut. "Gray!".

" **Ice make: Cannon!** " yelled Gray as a snow ball made its way towards the giant's face and struck it great force, toppling it over. "Lily you done yet?".

" **Instant freeze: Ice spike garden** " said Lily as she slammed her hands on the ground. The area near the wooden demon was instantly filled with sharp ice spikes.

Now the demon not being able to avoid the free fall, fell to its demise throwing up a large dust cloud. After a few seconds of inactivity, it glowed red and withered away into the air as black magic particles.

"It's done!" declared Erza.

"Heh, all bark and no bite!" taunted Lily while walking over to the group.

"Gramps, we did it!" said Lily with pride.

"Great job kids!" Makarov replied with a proud feeling.

"You are worthy of praise!" Goldmine remarks.

As Makarov was showing off about the greatness of the guild, he saw the most frightening thing ever. The guild hall was destroyed. He started panicking and sweating at same time hoping to get out of the situation unscathed. But luck didn't favor him.

"It's about time we parted ways. See you soon everyone, let's go kids!" Makarov said nervously.

"Gramps, give us time to rest, we just defeated the monster and saved the cit-" Lily stopped short when she looked at the rubble which was left of the city and not surprisingly, the meeting hall as well. * **Clang** * Her jaw dropped and also of the ones nearby who were looking at the 'spectacle'.

She had stepped on a land mine. "Oh dear me, the hall's been reduced to dust!" said Bob, throwing salt on the wound.

"Ugh…" Lily winced at the statement.

"You idiots from fairy tail deserve punishment!" shouted the other guild masters.

"Master, what should we do?" asked Erza nonchalantly.

"For now, MAKE A RUN FOR IT!" shouted Makarov as he darted in the opposite direction of the city with the other fairy tail members, followed by the furious guild masters.

"Why does this happen to me?" cried Makarov. "Why can't it end well… for once, at the very least!".

"That was fun. Let's do that again!" said Happy, further adding to Makarov's sorrow.

"Hey, Gray? Is this what happens all the time?" asked Lucy while wondering about the collateral damage portrayed in the sorcerer weekly.

"Pretty much. This is routine I guess" Gray replied.

The fairies ran far till they were gone into the horizon, still followed by the still furious guild masters.

* * *

 **A/N: That's it for the chapter guys. The story, as you saw, will have minor changes to it, but will remain mostly canon. Well... stay tuned for the upcoming chapters… until then, bye bye…**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Hi guys, I'm back, with another chapter. Sorry for the extra-long vacation but things took a turn for the worse for me. And I couldn't get myself out of it. Shit man! Does college suck ass BIG TIME! Well enough rant about my shitty life. This chapter is a little different from the usual ones. Anyways I'll still make them coherent so they don't mess up your fun. Enjoy…**

 **Disclaimer – I don't own fairy tail.**

 **Chapter 12: A Strange Island**

* * *

 **A few days later… After the Meeting hall protection fiasco...**

* * *

The day was pretty normal as usual with scorching sun, chirping birds, a flying cat and a squirming girl. It was rather a uncommon for the said girl to be so uncomfortable in the bed in the morning. Perhaps the heat was too high or maybe the day was too cold, but the scorching sun would eliminate the second possibility. But a well ventilated room was not bound to get hot that easily.

Lily was experiencing a nightmare, a very strange occurrence in the Dragneel family. She was mumbling something in her sleep. Happy was woken up by that, in fact long ago, and was flying above Lily in worry. He didn't want to wake her up, but also didn't want to her to feel pain. He was stuck with a difficult choice.

"…u don't go…" were some words Happy could make out. His worry was growing. Then an idea popped up in his mind. He opened the door and flew out.

With a jerk Lily woke up, finally hitting the end point of her horrible experience. * **Gasp** * Breathing heavily she held her head for a while, before calming down. "This is a bright morning!" she said to herself and sat up on her bed.

"Lily, are you okay?" asked Erica as she rushed into the room and hugged the life out of Lily.

"…ugh…I'm…fine…let. Go. Of. Me" said Lily in between her breaths as she struggled to get air in the strangle hold, sorry hug.

"Sorry, I got too excited!" replied Erica. "So did you sleep well? Happy said that you didn't feel good!".

"No. I'm perfectly fine. No need to worry" replied Lily. "Just… had a dream about Natsu".

"I see. Wanna talk about it?" asked Erica.

"I don't think that's necessary. It didn't bother me much" replied Lily.

"Well that's great" said Erica.

"So, what's for breakfast?" said Lily as she got out of bed and headed to get ready for the day.

"It's the usual!" replied Erica.

"Oh, delicious as always, and mysterious as ever." Commented Lily. "I still don't get how your cooking became so good overnight!?".

"What are you talking about? My cooking was good always!" replied Erica nervously avoiding eye contact.

"I won't believe it. Your cooking was so bad Natsu and I used to get our own food most of the time" shot Lily. "Whose help did you get for improving yourself?".

"You got me there. I did take the help of a certain white haired girl. Tee hee." Erica replied goofily.

"Don't tell me… you asked Mira for help?" asked Lily.

"Why? Do you not like that?" asked Erica innocently.

"Nope. It's just that Mira had to help you with cooking." said Lily. "Oh the horrors. Poor Mira". Saying so she went away.

'At the very least she doesn't hate Mira anymore! That's good. I'm happy.' Thought Erica as she imagined the past broken Lily who hated Mira very much. "Oh, dear me! I almost forgot the stove! Don't get burnt Mr. Breakfast!".

After a while after all the daily chores were over, Lily and Erica left for the guild.

When they reached the guild, they saw that the guild doors were shut. Assuming the usual. Erica prepared a shield made of wind and opened the doors slowly. But the door was not actually out of the line of fire. It withheld the attacks of the brawling guild members. So it was thrown open. Luckily Lily and Erica both were standing at the side of the door, with the shield still up, so they took no damage. A few spells made their way out and then a few of the people from the inside.

After a while a big group of people was thrown out. When inspected, they were beaten up and had bruises all over. "Man, that was a bad idea!" came a random voice from the pile of people lying there.

"What was?" asked Erica.

"Our savior has arrived!" said Macao, as he popped his head out of the pile of dead weight desperately trying to get out of the knot.

"Starting a fight in the presence of Gildarts of course" said Gray as he crawled out of the pile. He was rather unscathed except for a bulging forehead.

"So you were all beat up by Gildarts?" Happy asked innocently. Everyone there just shrieked at 'beaten up'.

"Erica please calm Gildarts down" pleaded Wakaba climbing out next.

* **Sigh** * with that Erica went inside the guild. Then a sudden silence filled the atmosphere.

"Say, why isn't master doing anything about Gildarts?" asked Happy.

"Coz, he ain't in town right now!" Gray promptly replied.

Everyone outside waited outside patiently before an intense bloodlust was felt by them which sent shivers down everyone's spine. Moments later a beaten up Gildarts flew out of the guild and into the mountain of unconscious guild members knocking them like bowling pins. Out came Erica with a deadly look on her face.

"A lecherous womanizer!" Erica muttered.

"Ahh, things must have gotten out of hand I guess" commented Macao.

"Everyone! It's about time you woke up. No need to pretend to be out cold. The matter's been solved!" said Erica in a pleasant tone, which further scared the living shit out of everyone.

They all quietly made their way into the guild hall to resume their routines. Among the crowd outside the likes of Erza, Cana, even Lisanna, Levy and Mira were seen walking back into the guild.

"So how did you end up here?" asked Lily.

"We were just victims caught in the crossfire!" replied Levy representing the said group.

"I don't think she belongs to this group!" said Lily while pointing at Erza. "You must've been a part of that crossfire".

"Ugh… damn she caught me" Erza whispered the last part to herself.

"Whatever, that was a great start to a great day!" said Lily as she cheered up everyone.

* * *

 **A few moments later, inside the guild hall…**

* * *

"It's about time!" said Lily. "Gray? You up for it?".

"Huh? What?" he replied back with a question.

"Gray! It's about time!" Lily repeated.

"Oh, it's that time, huh?" Gray muttered in agreement.

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Lucy as she came to the two with a curious face.

"Ah great timing. You are coming with us!" commanded Lily.

"To where? Hey, hey, heeey…" yelled Lucy as she was dragged by Lily to the second floor.

"Hey the request board is over there!" reminded Lucy.

"Today… we pick an S class request!" chirped Lily.

"OOOH, an S-class quest!" Lucy was amazed. "But can I really come?".

"You don't even know that, you're so dumb, Lucy!" taunted Happy while nodding his head in disbelief.

"Ugh… okay you tell me then, CAT!" replied an annoyed Lucy.

"An S-Class mage can only take up an S-Class quest, but he or she can take other mages to help her in the quest!" said Professor Happy. "The quest is more difficult than a standard quest, but the reward is worth the effort and risk!".

"Oh, I see!" replied Lucy satisfied that her doubt was cleared.

"This is quest we'll be doing!" came Lily's voice as she came back from picking her quest.

"What's this? Need Help? Galuna Island? What's with the unheard location?" said Gray as he quickly skimmed through the request flyer. "Looks like they are pretty desperate for help!"

"So we'll help them as quickly as possible and get the reward!" said Lily with confidence. "And you can forget about paying your rent for a few months with that much money Lucy!"

"Forget about rent for… a… few… months…" Lucy was virtually drooling over the fact that the landlady wouldn't come nagging in her peaceful apartment for a few MONTHS. "Let's get going right away!".

"Lucy's so greedy" Happy commented, which was completely ignored by the targeted person, though she did show signs of cringing.

"That's the spirit!" said Lily as she winked at Gray, who could only face palm at her gesture.

"Whatever let's go already!" groaned Gray already feeling very bored about the mission, due to him seeing it as a 'major pain in the ass'.

A few moments later the trio was ready to go, not to mention Happy was with them. "Onwards to Galuna Island!" roared Lily and pointed in a direction which was the Hargeon port.

The three were walking with Happy resting on Gray's head. If you ask him why, the answer would simply be because it is so broad and bushy and had a nice cushion effect. They were quietly walking for quite some time when Lily decided to break the ice, since just walking was kinda awkward.

"Hey Lucy how was your time in Fairy tail?" asked Lucy.

"It was fun… for the most part!" said Lucy.

"So which part wasn't fun?" asked Gray. He asked a question which pricked Lucy a lot.

"The part where I couldn't pay my rent because the reward for the request was never obtained!" said Lucy fake tears falling out of her eyes.

"Oh I see." said Gray while sending a look towards Lily who just ignored it by whistling. "That reminds me… how will the Hargeon port be now, after YOU had destroyed it?".

"About that… I… uh… honestly don't know!" she replied. "It was by accident; I swear".

"Sure, by accident. Whatever you say!" Gray replied mockingly to which Lily puffed her cheeks. "Ah speaking of which we have arrived at the said location!".

"This place is back to how it used to be! Phew!" Lily said as she sighed a breath of relief.

"That's good. People are back to their routine!" said Happy. "We should say hi to them".

"L-Lets not do that. I don't want trouble!" said Lucy as she carefully examined the people around. Their gazes directed towards them warned them of NOT touching anything.

"Hey Mister, you willing to take us to Galuna Island?" asked Lily to one of the sailors with the sign boats for hire.

"Galuna Island? You mean that Galuna Island? That cursed Island is one place I would never travel to!" replied the man. "Sorry Missy, but I can't risk it. You can ask anybody else, buuut I highly doubt anyone would agree".

So they did what they were told while ignoring the last piece of advice. The results were quite as predicted. Not a single one of the sailors whom they asked agreed to take them to the island. There were just a few people left.

"Ahhhh… this sucks, we have the worst luck today!" Lily said with frustration.

"Why is everyone so reluctant on going to the damn island?" Gray asked to no one in particular.

"I guess they must be scared of the fishes!" Happy replied to the hollow question.

"What? Fishes? What a dumb reason!" said Lily. "Or maybe…".

"You kids look you want to go to the cursed island! I can take you there" said one voice.

The group froze for a second and returned to the person who had uttered the words. Their eyes were shining as though they had heard some angel's voice. As though their voices of plea were heard and answered by god.

"REALLY? YOU'LL TAKE US THERE?!" asked the group with hope filled voices.

"Yes of course. I can take you there. After all I was from there!" said the person.

"Oh thank you mister…" thanked Lily.

"Bobo at your service. Let's get going shall we?" Bobo asked.

"Yeah" replied Lily.

* * *

 **A few minutes later, in the middle of the trip, in a boat far off from land…**

* * *

"So you bunch have come to help with the curse?" asked Bobo while rowing the boat.

"Yes! We have taken the request which the island-dwe… you have put up!" replied Lily.

"So why are you 'here'?" asked Gray.

"Honestly, I was fed up of that place so I left!" he replied with a smile. It was an emotionless smile.

"Good luck then. You'll be needing a lot of it" said Bobo in a mocking way.

"Luck? Why we need luck for a job like this?" asked Gray.

"For times like these!" said the sailor as a smirk made its way on his face.

"Huh? WhaAAAAT!" was the reaction of the mage group looked in the direction pointed by the man.

There was a huge tide of water approaching them. The mages were more surprised by the lack of the person who warned immediately after noticing certain danger.

"Damn it!" was all that was heard when the young mages were thrown off the boat they were in and were engulfed by the wave.

* * *

 **A few minutes later, on the Island…**

* * *

*COUGH**COUGH* Gray coughed up the water that had entered his lungs when he fell into the water. He fell down on the sand and was trying to recover from the lack of breath.

"You okay Gray?" asked Happy as he flew to where Gray was slumped.

"I'm fine. Perfectly fine." He replied sarcastically.

"Where's Lucy?" the cat asked, which kicked Gray into action.

"I don't know. Let's look for her!" he replied.

After a few minutes they noticed something floating towards the shore. When they approached it they saw a big chunk of ice. Upon closer inspection, the chunk of ice turned out to be hollow. Then the top of the started to melt and revealed two familiar faces, with one being unconscious.

"How the hell did you find time to make this?" Gray asked looking at the size of the boulder like ice shell.

"There's a reason why I'm S-Class!" she replied, making Gray click his tongue in annoyance, but he came back to subject.

"So how's she faring?" he asked her.

"She's fine just unconscious because she couldn't breathe very well" Lily replied.

"Let's wake her up" Happy suggested.

"Looks like there's still some water in her body" Gray said looking at the girl who was still struggling to expel the foreign object out of her body.

"Lily do something about it!" he commanded her. She sent him a glare but complied.

Lily began rubbing Lucy's back, which caused her to throw up more water, causing the girl to stir. But the slow speed at which the water was coming out irritated Lily and so she summoned a hand, made of ice, and was about to slam the blonde with it before being stopped by Gray.

"You insane idiot, that would kill her rather than help her" Gray shouted at Lily, who just pouted. The shouting woke the girl up.

"What happened? Where am I?" asked the girl innocently.

"You're in heaven dear child" said Happy as he hovered over Lucy and posed like an angel.

"Heaven? HEAVEN!?" Lucy was startled at the revelation.

"Quit it you guys. Stop scaring her" said Gray. "This is her first S-Class mission, don't make it her last". Lucy sighed a breath of relief on hearing Gray's voice.

She helped herself up and looked at the duo. She then brought up a thumbs up signaling ready for action.

"Great now that we're all fine let's get to the task at hand" said Lily as she pointed in a direction opposite to the beach.

Walking through the forest they came face to face with a big wooden door, fortified by wooden outposts with strange people on it. The people keeping watch from above noticed them and immediately questioned their presence.

"Who are you people?" asked one of them.

"We're mages from Fairy Tail, and we have come to help you with removal of the curse" replied Lily.

"Show us your guild marks!" the other guard questioned.

The group revealed their guild marks. After visibly confirming the marks the wooden gates slowly opened creaking slightly along the way. The group of mages walked in and noticed a very simple and cozy village. The entire population of the village gathered at the entrance. The people standing there looked eager to say something to the group of mages.

"You have to help us get rid of this curse!" said one of the people.

"Yes. This nightmare never ends. You have to help us!" said one of the women.

"This curse makes us look hideous" added one of the other women.

"Okay we will help you but first tell what this curse exactly does?" said Lily trying to the calm the tense villagers.

Then immediately the whole group of people started narrating the curse making the sound very chaotic before it reached the ears of the young mages.

"Everybody calm down, one at a time" said Gray not able to understand the chaotic speech.

Then suddenly the group of villagers started to shift to the side to give way to another person. He was an elderly man and seemed to command respect over the others. The man introduced himself as Moka and told them that he was the head of the village.

"This village is struck by a curse. This curse turns us into hideous looking demons!" said the man.

"But how does that happen?" asked Happy.

"Ever since the moon turned purple, we have been cursed with these forms" saying so the man let go the cloak he was wearing, and so did the other villagers. "Every night we turn into demons and return back to normal upon sunrise"

Their bodies were indeed quite the sight. All the people's skins were colored in a very deep blue or green, similar to that of demons' skins. Some people's hands had demon transformation, while some others had their legs turned to demon, while other had other areas in a demonic form. The group was not disgusted, but rather became curious.

"This is a very bad omen for us!" said Moka. "We even had to kill some of us to prevent from transforming".

"You idiots, you would kill your own to protect from a stupid curse!" Gray growled in anger.

"Yes even my own son!" he replied while holding out a photo. The person in the image had a very familiar face, which made the group blink before focusing on the photo. They couldn't believe, but refrained from saying anything. Then Lucy interjected.

"So why doesn't this affect us?" asked Lucy.

"Because you are mages you are immune to the effect of the purple moon" replied Moka.

"But-" Lucy was cut off by Lily who replied with compliance.

Thinking for a while the group of mages decided to investigate further into the matter. But the solution for the problem was not in sight. Because the mages themselves were pretty clueless as to what caused the transformation.

"I know of a way to relieve us from the curse" said Moka.

He then pointed at the moon and said "You have to destroy the moon!" causing the mages jaws to drop.

"WHAT?" was the reaction of the mages.

* * *

 **Meanwhile, two years ago, In Edolas…**

* * *

"This is impossible. You have to be kidding!" said all the shocked guild members. "Natsu sacrificed himself for your escape?".

The second sentence made more tears flow out of the people who were already crying. The group which had just returned were devastated and beyond words. They had a very pained expression and were still not able to come to terms with Natsu's sacrifice.

"How did this happen? How could they capture Natsu?" asked the guild members still trying to confirm the credibility of the news which they had just heard.

Then Jet took the courage to describe the whole incident in excruciating detail, bringing out further tears from the eyes of the ones who had directly witnessed the scene.

"That crazy king has finally lost all sanity!" said Jet. "He had a very evil look on his face when he declared his enmity towards us mages".

The rest of the members now had lost hope of ever seeing Natsu again. "This was the second time we've lost him. God knows where this Natsu's from?" said Macao.

"He may have been different, but his feeling towards us genuinely showed that he considered us family" added Wakaba.

"You know these two years Natsu's been with us were truly some awesome memories!" said Droy. "He brought a big change to this place".

"I can't imagine this place without him" he added. On hearing this a loud thud was heard. When the guild members scanned for the source they noticed that Lisanna was missing. They immediately understood they had revealed something delicate.

"Why did you do that Natsu? Why didn't you escape with us?" Lisanna cried out. "I can't imagine a world without you. Why did you leave me alone?".

"I don't know if this sounds right but he did it to protect you… us" Lily said trying to calm Lisanna.

"So why did have to sacrifice at all? He could have come with us! So… why? Why?" Lisanna repeatedly said the same thing still not able to come to terms with Natsu's actions.

"I think he wished for to live on!" said Lily. "I know he isn't the brother I originally had, but he was closer to me than other Natsu and I'm going to miss him so much!".

Lisanna immediately looked at Lily's face and what she saw surprised her. It was the first time Lily had shown such a strong emotion like sorrow. She was crying, tears were overflowing non-stop from her eyes. They showed the same emotion she was experiencing, agony of losing a loved one. Lily immediately pulled Lisanna into a tight hug, not being able to control her emotions she cried her heart out, causing Lisanna to do the same. After a while they settled down, but remained there for a while.

A few moments later, they went back inside. They were welcomed by the people inside who were ready to comfort the two. But seeing the two had calmed down their faces gained a small yet sad smile. Natsu had caused quite the mess at the guild.

* * *

 **Elsewhere…**

* * *

"It is time!" said a cloaked figure before disappearing into the cloud of dust and smoke.

* * *

 **Four days Later, Edolas Prison…**

* * *

"This sucks… big time!" said Natsu as he twisted and turned on the wooden plank of a bed, in the cell he was being held captive.

"I thought Lucy's place was a dump, but this is some next level shit!" complained Natsu. "You can't even pass time here!".

"How the hell do 'they' live in prisons for years?" Natsu asked rhetorically referring to the obvious.

Then footsteps were heard and they sounded like they were getting closer. As the sound became clearer Natsu could make out that the sounds belonged to women footwear. When the person was finally close enough Natsu caught her scent. He immediately recognized it and was about to react when suddenly he saw the same emblem that Edolas empire army was having. Natsu backed off a little finding it confusing the scent came from the enemy. He assumed the worst and prepared to attack when he a saw locks of a familiar pink.

"Is that really you…?" asked Natsu hopefully. "…mom?"

"So you recognized me? How?" asked the woman now recognized as Erica.

"Your scent gave you away!" Natsu replied.

"My scent?" she asked confusingly.

Then Natsu recognized another scent in the air. "So you're here, too… Mystogan!" he called out.

"Yes. Erica you should be careful around him. He isn't your real son!" Mystogan said to Erica.

"So, he is the one who was teleported here due to the anima tear?" Erica asked curiously.

"Yes, he was forced here." he replied.

"So what's the plan?" asked Natsu with his signature plastered on his face, because he was expecting some very explosive way of escaping the prison.

"It's pretty simple actually. You just have to disappear!" said Mystogan. Erica could only gasp at the revelation.

"Huh? I didn't quite catch that!" said Natsu as tried to clarify what he had just heard. "Or am I hearing things?".

"I said 'you have to disappear'!" the last part came in a very dark sinister tone, all the while Mystogan was sporting a smug grin.

Natsu just looked at the Mystogan while he was processing all what was said to him. Erica, though she knew he wasn't her real son, was dumbstruck at what she had just heard. She was going to lose her son a second time, though she hadn't been with him for very long… heck even a few minutes, which saddened her even more.

"So you want to have a chat with your 'mother' for the last time?" asked Mystogan, while still holding the same grin.

Natsu snapped out of his thoughts, and just nodded with a very solemn expression. He then unwrapped his scarf from his neck and neatly folded it. Then looking at it he placed his hand over it. Smiling softly, he recollected his memories of earth-land Fairy Tail. The laughter, the sorrow, the fun times, the difficult times; he recollected all of it and let out a sigh.

"So mom, how have you been?" asked Natsu.

Erica snapped out of her thoughts and had heard the question. But she didn't know what to reply. It was as though she had met after a long time.

"I know it may sound a bit strange being called mom by the doppelganger of your son…" said Natsu while smiling sheepishly. "But you know you definitely are my mom, even here in Edolas!".

"I see. You're different from my Natsu but you know, I like the change!" said Erica with a smile.

"So why did you betray Fairy Tail?" asked Natsu in a playful tone, though he knew it may be a very sensitive topic for Erica. "Or was it really a betrayal?" he added.

Erica was caught off guard when Natsu said that. She couldn't believe that he caught her true intentions very easily. Then her smile grew more real than forced because the main guilt weighing her heart down was almost gone.

"How did you know… I didn't…?" asked Erica truly surprised.

"You know even mom back on earth-land couldn't do something like that, how could someone like you do that?" Natsu said.

"What do you mean?" asked Erica honestly clueless about the answer.

"You know when I first got news, that you were working for the enemy, I couldn't believe it!" Natsu explained. "When I looked at Lily's expression when she said that, I could see that she was very shocked at you doing such a thing".

"Her eyes told that you cared for her, or us, to the point that the betrayal seemed unreal! They gave a feeling of warmth when she mentioned you! It stung her too much, I guess" he continued. "So why would you, who honestly took care for us, betray us just like that? You must have a very solid reason to do so right?".

Hearing the explanation Erica felt very happy that her family still cared for her. She was expecting to be loathed to death for her sin, but this was something which made her truly happy. She almost came to tears in joy. Mystogan could only smile at the two.

"I know what you're thinking" Natsu said. "You should go back to them".

"But, will they forgive me?" she asked. "I am very scared, Natsu".

"Don't worry, they'll forgive you!" Natsu reassured her. "That's what families are for!".

Hearing that a tear trickled down Erica's cheeks. Noticing that Natsu got flustered. Mystogan was very happy internally that the reunion was worth it, but he didn't dare show it outside, else it could jeopardize the plan.

"Don't cry m-mom! You should be h-happy n-now" said Natsu with hands waving furiously trying to calm his mother down.

"I'm not crying idiot!" she replied. "I'm just happy that's all!".

"You don't cry when you're happy do you?" asked Natsu innocently.

"These are tears of joy, silly" she replied with a giggle.

"So much like my mom!" Natsu pointed out.

"Oh, yeah that reminds me. How is the earth-land Erica like?" Erica asked enthusiastically.

Then Natsu narrated the whole ordeal that he encountered when he was with Igneel and how he had met with Erica and Lily. Erica was surprised to know that Natsu was not blood related to either of the two mentioned in the narration.

"So earth-land Erica isn't your real mother and Lily isn't your real sister?" asked Erica.

"Uh-huh" Natsu nodded in response.

Then the two talked for a while, as Mystogan kept guard. Then he got up and approached them when he saw that they had finished talking and remained silent for a little while.

"So… done?" he asked in a serious tone.

"Yeah yeah, ya don't have to be so uptight about it" Natsu shot back. "Ah wait just one more thing!".

"Mom, I'll entrust this to you!" said Natsu as he lifted his scarf and held it towards Erica.

"But, I don't think you'll want to leave this with me" she replied knowing Natsu never parted with his scarf.

"It's okay, I'll be fine" he said with his signature grin and a thumbs up.

"Erica go now. Unless you want to witness this!" said Mystogan in a stern voice.

She just held her head down, her hair shadowing her face and she stood still for a second and then darted out of the place. Natsu and Mystogan could notice that tears were flowing down her eyes. After she was gone Mystogan turned to face Natsu.

"So how do you want to do this" asked Mystogan with a smile on his face.

"Huh?" Natsu was confused until he noticed Mystogan's smile had changed. His eyes widened in realization that his disappearance had some hidden message behind it.

"This is it." said Mystogan as he snapped his fingers.

Then a series of explosions were heard. They sounded pretty close. But then they sounded as if they were getting closer. If was rather strange… explosions don't travel. Wait a minute, what if…

Then Natsu noticed an explosion go off in the prison cell two spaces from him. He looked back to where Mystogan was standing only to find him missing. Natsu didn't have the time to react to that, when a explosion went off in the next cell. The force of the explosion was so large that it broke through the wall of Natsu's cell engulfed him too. It could be seen as a pretty large blast from the outside, as noticed by the guards in the palace who were in charge of monitoring the entrance of the prison from there.

The internal palace guards were notified, who in turn brought the news to the king. Faust immediately mobilized his royal guards and ordered them to investigate and apprehend any criminals caught in their act.

The dust settled by the time the royal guards had arrived. When they had arrived at the spot where the explosions took place they could only find very big craters caused by the explosions. Apparently there was one explosion that was a lot bigger than others. It was evident from the fact it left a big gaping hole in the floating Island's floor. It could be mainly attributed to the fact that the prison was built on the rear end of the Island where it didn't have much depth. When they searched around for clues, they could only find blood splattered everywhere with broken wall pieces and rubble. They didn't check the blood as it look to horrifying to examine. Few rooms at the far end of the prison had a few tattered clothes.

When they examined those pieces they couldn't find anything relevant. Erza also had a look at the piece of suspicious stuff and found it familiar. One of them found in the room of the biggest explosion had a gold lining on the pitch black cloth, which brought back a very familiar memory of a certain someone.

'I can't believe he's gone. Just like that' she thought. Though she didn't have to do anything with him, she felt very sad at the fact that he was not there. The first person to actually have an equal footing with her was gone. He was her goal which was now unreachable. A bitter feeling crept up at the bottom of her heart, and that feeling was loneliness. Well, not that she could do anything about it now. Her heart sank... it became emotionless once again as it started returning to the how it was before Natsu's arrival in Edolas, cold and empty.

* * *

 **Near Fairy Tail, a few hours later…**

* * *

"Now me coming here is going to be a problem" said Erica as she looked at the place where she originally came from. "But, I guess I can only believe Natsu!".

Saying so she slowly walked closer to the guild's door. Her clothes were all tattered, her hair was all over the place and her skin was covered with a thick coat of dust. She had the scarf Natsu had gave her around her neck, which was surprisingly devoid of dust. She had hidden herself in the city of Edolas for a few hours to lose the heat, as she escaped from the palace. Her identity was compromised during the explosion when one of the guards revealed her to be present in the prison before the explosion. He clearly said that she ran out just before the explosions started, thus testifying her as a traitor.

'Once a traitor, always a traitor I guess' thought to herself, feeling guilty for committing two grave sins. The major one betraying her family.

"Well might as well give it a try" Erica sighed and took a step closer, when the intruder alarm inside went off. Though Erica couldn't hear a thing she could feel the atmosphere getting hostile.

"Hey someone's outside! Everybody get ready!" shouted Macao as he positioned himself at the window. But he couldn't spot anyone outside.

"Hey I can't see anyone here!" said Wakaba as he pushed himself against Macao trying to peek out of the window. "Then why did the alarm go off? LEVY!".

"Hey, don't doubt my gadgets, they're flawless!" she retorted. "It's better to check the door anyways".

"I agree!" said Lucy and Lily in unison.

"Okay since the two of you are the current strongest, get ready with your weapons!" commanded Macao.

"Right!" replied two as they positioned near the door with weapons readied.

"I'll get the door; you rush the intruder!" said Lucy as she put her hand on the knob/handle.

"GO!" shouted Lucy as she opened the door outwards.

"HAAH!" rushed Lily outside.

"Ouch!" and a light thud was all that was heard when Lily reached outside with a weapon raised.

Recovering from the fall Erica looked up to find Lily with a raised weapon. Assuming she was receiving punishment for her betrayal she just closed her eyes for the beating. But it never came, because when she looked up she could see a stunned and teared up Lily.

"Mom? What the hell are you doing here you… you… trait-" Lily couldn't finish the last part still not able to get over the betrayal.

Hearing her stutter Erica got up and tried to speak but words didn't come out of her mouth. She then remembered the words Natsu told her. The guilt which she felt at that time was very strong. She knew she had a reason, but she couldn't tell them before and now they wouldn't believe her.

"TELL ME! WHY ARE YOU HERE? SHOULDN'T YOU BE IN THERE WITH THEM!" Lily shouted alerting all the members inside.

Then all of the other made their way to the door and peeked outside to find a rather familiar face. They couldn't believe their eyes, but when they did their faces had a looks of disdain. They didn't like the presence of the person that had arrived.

"I-I don't know i-if you'll believe me, but I t-thought to come b-back home" she replied.

Finding the answer rather irritating and shameless Lily's anger rose. "Home? This place is not your home! You will never find a place here!".

"I'm sorry. I should've…" Erica couldn't speak anymore.

"I won't ever forgive you! And that scarf-" Lily couldn't believe what she saw. Everyone's attention shifted to the said item upon hearing Lily's words. The last two things were to be associated were now together.

"What did you do to him? How did you get Natsu's scarf?" demanded Lily now furious at the pink haired woman.

"H-He gave i-it to me h-himself!" she replied.

"He wouldn't give it to somebody just like that!" Lucy butted in the conversation not accepting Erica's answer.

"D-Do you know that the prison had explosions a few hours ago?!" said Erica.

"Yeah! What of it?" asked Lily.

"I was there! I talked to him there for a good three hours!" replied Erica.

Their eyes widened at the revelation. But they still couldn't understand why the conversation took place in the first place.

"But why did you want to talk to him!?" asked Lucy.

"It was because I wanted to know how he was different from my Natsu" she replied in a soft voice which gave a feeling of longing.

Understanding the implication everyone, now knew that she wasn't lying. The hostile atmosphere soon subsided and everyone started to tear up in joy that their family member was back. Then Erica finally revealed the whole plan, which involved the betrayal in the first place.

"So this Mystogan guy knew that Natsu was going to come here?" asked Macao.

"No he didn't know who was going to come, but he knew someone was pulled here" she replied. "Natsu was the one".

"Speaking of the devil… where is he? Still stuck in prison? You didn't get him out?" asked Levy.

"Yes! where is Natsu?" asked Lisanna finally joining in on the conversation.

Erica flinched at the question but decided to let truth out. The last part of the plan was then painfully narrated by her as she choked on a sob or two back by the time she had finished. But to her surprise no one had saddened any further than before.

"I guess it's expected, what doesn't belong to this world, can't be here forever!" said Lisanna with soft voice and a sad smile, a few tears flowing down her face.

"But we're happy we have our precious family member back!" said Macao cheering everyone up from the gloomy atmosphere.

"Family member?" Erica muttered under her breath as those words sank into her heart. "Yes! I'm glad to be back!".

"Hey what're we waiting for. Let's party!" rejoiced everyone and went back inside.

That evening though not the best, was definitely a memory Erica couldn't forget and would cherish for the time to come. She was forgiven for a mistake she had committed in her past, which made her very happy. The misunderstood betrayal was also clarified. Everything was as Natsu had described, a family is worth cherishing.

'Thank you… Natsu.' She thought to herself as she sat on the bar stool looking at the happy and drunk faces of the people, HER guild mates.

* * *

 **A/N: And this ends here… Okay I added an update about Edolas in this chapter, but Edolas will have its own arc later on. That's it from me for now… so stay tuned for more stuff… until then, bye bye…**


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